Legitimate Concerns
by Vanya-Deyja
Summary: When unexpected fortune forces the Motou children together Yami is pushed into an awkward co-existence with the boy he's never met and always resented. YY/Y.
1. Chapter 1

_**LEGITIMATE CONCERNS:**_

A/N: hey everyone! I know, I know, where the hell have I been? Well it's been a very busy year between university and some other extra curricular stuff I've been doing. I think it's been good for me creatively but now I'm trying to knuckle down and get back on here a bit more regularly. I can't promise I'll be here weekly again but I am going to try.

This is the first part of a two part special. The second half should be up in a week to a fortnight. It is already written, it just needs editing. Immediately following this I will be putting up a oneshot called _Crowbar_.

What about my other fics? I have 15 chapters of _In The East_ that need to be edited. I need to re-read the story and get myself reacquainted with it. So I will be returning to that baby ASAP but no exact date is currently in mind. As for the long awaited sequel to_ Suspects and Subjects_ I'm about 40% of the way through writing it. It's been fighting with me but we're making progress.

TL:DR? It's my aim to be back slowly but surely.

Rating: MA+  
>Pairings: YamiYugi  
>Universe: AU<br>Part: 1/2  
>Summary: When unexpected fortune forces the Motou children together Yami is pushed into an awkward co-existence with the boy he's never met and always resented.<p>

* * *

><p>"Yami?" Grandpa Motou tempted. "Are you going to come down and say hello?"<p>

"No," he grunted.

"Alright," the old man conceded gently, tugging back the door to settle it into place. "Don't study too hard."

"Ahuh…" He answered burying his face in his forearms.

Any other day, any other guest, Grandpa Motou would've been slapping him round the back of the head and dragging him down the stairs by his ears to give a proper greeting. Old Motou was all about hospitality, kindness, trusting strangers… somewhere between the international travel and the kiddie store he'd become a people person. Yami had been dragged to the front counter of the Kame Game Shop and forced to smile at seven which was more difficult than it sounded given his default expression was apathetic pout.

He had two options: face the little invader now or later. Yami chose later. It was too close, too cold, to the re-open the wound so early in the day. His mind was still nastily tangled after the last week. The phone call, Grandpa's tears, the realization nothing would ever be settled properly, the funeral Yami wasn't allowed to attend, the creeping awareness that someone would have to take in Yugi now…

"-_not the biggest room but it's comfy,_" Grandpa consoled chattily up the staircase over the clunking of the roller bags. How much had the little baby brat bought from Venice? "_Now you just let me know if you need anything alright?_"

If he answered properly Yami didn't catch it. The boy must've mumbled. Yami's mind stung at another pinch of niggling dislike that crept over him for Yugi. He'd never met the kid, not once, never seen him either but Yami had always _loathed_ him on principle. It was easier that way. Now, so close after the upheaval, there probably wasn't anything little Yugi could do right in regards to Yami. Given his mood Yami would probably cringe at him naturally whatever he did or didn't attempt.

How old was the kid? Fourteen? Yami buried his face back between his forearms. He still wanted to cry but he couldn't find it in him. It didn't feel right. He was too mingled with contrasts. He wanted to cry from the realization he'd never get answers, the injustice of having no opportunity to set it all right or snub his father, not really because he would miss the man. If his father was dead Yami was miserable for chances lost not any great realities or tender memories. He was angry. He was happy. Part of him considered the man rightly deserved to die young for being such a bastard.

Not that Yami knew for certain, heads or tails, if his father was a bastard. Yami had never met him. Yugi had, Yugi had known him for twelve something plus years, had been raised by him and reared by him. Yugi had Christmases with the bastard and Yami had never met him, never heard his voice, never seen a photo…. Yugi would be crying no doubt, hoarse with loss, from losing the only family he'd ever known. The same family Yami had never known.

Fucking cold contrasts, cruel juxtapositions, seemed to be Fate and Fortune's kinks for the year. Yami scoffed into his elbow. Yeah, get rid of the crux of the family in some stupid accident so the bastard and the babe can both be shoved under the same roof. Sounded like _great _fun.

Family dinners were going to be exciting from now on.

* * *

><p>Shit he was tiny. Yami didn't know if it was pathetic or adorable. He was still at tangled odds. Half of him wanted to punch the pathetic little morsel and the rest just wanted to squeeze him, shake him, scream…<p>

Yugi Motou couldn't have been older than sixteen, not any bigger than fourteen, and in a black tee and grey slacks with his socks scrapping the linoleum of the kitchen floor as his eyes did the same he was a miserable picture of fallen glory. Yugi's fingers played over each other in his lap, nails brushing nails, bottom lip in a firm thin line in a way that made his whole face seem pallid.

Sour faced by default Yami took his position furthest away, across the table, elbows on the placemat and curling in the gangly teenager returned his face to his forearms. It was hard to look at Yugi for any period of time. Both of them seemed afraid their eyes would meet and they'd have to converse. Yami wondered if Yugi hated him on reflex as well or if the kid was just scared. Yami was bigger, this was his home, and he had the home field advantage.

"Nice warm meal…." Grandpa Motou pottered, as if his good for nothing son never put him through anything awkward and his two grandchildren were totally at peace.

Plates hit the table, then cutlery, give him a few days and old Solomon would be thwacking at Yami to get off his ass and set the table. '_Can't make an old man do everything! Do you want me to get arthritis?'_ was usually the lecture which accompanied any of the many playful slaps Yami oft received to noggin.

They took turns serving. Nothing seemed appetising, mind you. Yugi didn't seem to take anything significant and what he did forage he played with taking tiny mouthfuls only in absent reflex motions.

"Oh come on," Grandpa laughed, trying to look hearty. "Eat up you lot. Yami it's nice to see you chew for once but you're a growing boy."

He scoffed, pushing at his plate with his fork. Yugi didn't so much as twitch. Yami soured again. Miserable, that's what he was, the kid looked ruined. It turned everything back to cold silence till uncomfortably Yugi tried to speak.

"I don't feel great…" he mumbled. "Can I just…?"

"Must be jetlag," Grandpa dismissed quick and easy to try and assuage the painful hesitation, "just scrape the plate off and we'll have a big breakfast."

"Thank you," Yugi stood, fingers shaking over the cutlery he scraped up and like a light footed rabbit disappeared upstairs.

"Are you alright?" Grandpa asked a moment later as Yami played.

"Huh?" He blinked. "Yeah, I guess…"

"I'm sure you two will get along just fine," he assured, "poor boy isn't himself just yet I expect. Just got to give it time."

"Yeah…"

"I know this is all very uncomfortable," the old man sighed. "You can always talk to me though, you know…?"

"I know Grandpa," he muttered.

"I don't want to ask you this Kiddo," he heaved, "but can you keep an eye on him at school on Monday? It's a new country. He's got to be nervous."

"I will." Yami promised.

He didn't resent the request as much as he supposed he might've. Yugi looked like he needed all the help he could get. From home schooling in Europe to Domino High it would be a rocky transition. Kid would get his ass kicked. Yami didn't like picking on the weak, it wasn't his style, he had too much sympathy for the underdog to feel good about ever subjecting someone smaller than him. Nor would he ever feel pleasant about breaking a promise to the only member of his father's family who had raised and loved him.

* * *

><p>Yami didn't sleep well all weekend. He spent most of Saturday and Sunday wandering the parks, doing his homework by fountains, buying burgers with loose change and texting the guys. When he came home it was hard to tell either way if Yugi ever left his room during the day except to eat.<p>

They crossed awkwardly in the kitchen Sunday afternoon when Yami came home through the back door and found Yugi doing the dishes. Yugi looked up, immediately looked down, and still crumpled kept scrubbing. Yami should've said hello, they both seemed to want to try and mumble but not able to manage it just parted without any eye contact.

They couldn't avoid conversation on Monday morning when shouting between the downstairs and the upstairs Grandpa Motou tried to organize two silly teenage boys to momentum. Yugi was waiting out the front of the store when Yami came rushing down the stairs with his mouth still burning from toothpaste. Grandpa kicked him out, waving them both off, shoving Yami with the broom and warning about tardiness while he spat out the minty froth in the gutter. Yami wiped his mouth, the store door closed, and awkwardly Yugi jolted his bag on his shoulders.

"Sorry," he began, "I don't know the way…"

"It's okay," Yami shrugged, "come on, just follow me."

That was it till they reached the gates. Yami had to ask himself if Yugi even took in what the school front looked like with his feet on the pavement and as they kicked off their shoes into the lockers Yami had to wave off Honda.

"Which class are you in?"

"10-B?" Yugi supposed weakly.

"You're next to mine," Yami nodded, that was easy. He beckoned.

He left Yugi at the door to the class room on the third floor with the oddest tingle of uneasy protectiveness crinkling at him. Yugi was too small for this somehow. Yami was sympathetic but years of thinking nasty things about the other made him too guilty to speak with any confidence.

"The guy with the white hair's Ryou Bakura," Yami gestured beside him stupidly, "he's pretty nice."

"Thanks," Yugi mumbled, obviously tight. "Do you want to meet at the gates after school…?"

"Yeah," he murmured, "we'll walk home."

He almost offered more. Something like '_come get me if you need me'_ or '_just come sit with me at lunch_' or '_it'll be fine_' but all the phrases died on Yami's tongue. He didn't know if, even if he meant them, he could make them sound sincere. He didn't trust anything and too stubborn wasn't sure yet if he even liked Yugi beyond pity. There was too much resentment.

"Thanks," Yugi repeated, cutting Yami of any more responsibility parting to disappear into the class room.

_Shit_, Yami swallowed.

"Hey Motou!" Jou called down the hallway under the sunlight streaming through the windows thrusting his hand out into the air like he was trying to flag down a plane.

Yami smiled weakly. He had a tough guy routine to maintain but Jou always won something of a grin.

"Hey Jou," he grunted, brushing their knuckles as he passed the blonde on the way to his own desk.

"Hey Yami," the blonde followed, "who's the little guy?"

"Heh," he tried to formulate the right response, tripped over his tongue and like an idiot could only manage: "little brother."

"No way!" Jou shrieked both hands thrust into his pocket. "Why the fuck didn't you tell me man? I didn't know you had a brother!"

"He just moved in," Yami sighed, "he was living with my old man…"

"The old man who…?"

"Yeah, that one," Yami grunted.

"Oh…" Jou mumbled. "Should we…?"

"What?"

"I don't know…" The blonde shrugged. "You want me to ruffle him a little or something man?"

"Pfft," Yami snorted sinking into his seat like a rock off the side of a boat, "you seen him? He's tiny. You're not beating up a little guy Jou. You're better than that."

"Yeah but for _you_ man…"

"Nah," he shook his head, "he's okay. Be nice…?"

"Sure," Jou dragged his own chair round, scrapping the legs on the floor as he straddled it backwards. "What should I tell anyone if they ask?"

"That it's none of their goddamn business," Yami shrugged, "or you don't know…"

"You okay buddy…?"

"Yeah, I'm alright," he sighed. "It's just weird."

"It'll be right." Jou consoled. "He can't be that bad."

* * *

><p>Questions flooded in but given Yami was known more for grunts than eloquence he suspected Yugi would feel the brunt of them. Over the day Yami reached that zen state where he could zone all the bullshit out. So much so that he didn't realize Anzu was grumbling at him till she pinched his shoulder. She didn't ask much about Yugi she was more interested in calling him a slacker and demanding he help her clean the room.<p>

She wasn't a dreadful girl, kind of cute, if Yami was any braver he might've asked her out but Jou had given him one hell of a reputation over the years so he rather doubted her response to be anything positive. Miho was cuter, sweeter, and given her ditzy preference for the tough alpha male Yami might've had a shot if he wasn't removed from the running automatically by his friendship with Honda. Honda needed all the help he could get to snag that Miho and Yami liked him too much to present competition rather than encouragement. Honda and Jou seemed to be the only two people who didn't think he was a raging psychopath when he had a temper tantrum.

Yugi seemed to take his advice, maybe, at least Yami thought he spotted the little thing chatting amicably with Ryou Bakura in the hallways once or twice. Wishful thinking maybe…

He skipped last period with Jou to crash on the roof. Honda was appalled with them for it. It didn't make Yami feel any lighter when he reached the front gate in time with the school bell.

"Arcade always makes you feel better," Jou offered.

"Nah," Yami sighed, "got to walk him home or he'll get lost."

"Don't _have_ to man."

"Yeah I do," he replied sullen and nervous.

"What you worried about?"

"I don't know…" Yami leant back into the wall, eyes up at the sky. "I just keep waiting for us to blow up and start screaming at each other. I don't know what to do with him…"

"How come he's with you anyway?" The blonde shrugged. "What he get expelled from his school or something?"

"My old man died." Yami mumbled. "Grandpa got custody of Yugi in the will."

"Really…?" Jou seemed to deflate, lose air, not know what to say. "Oh man I'm sorry…"

"It's okay," he sighed, "I didn't know him. He didn't want _me_. He made that pretty clear."

"Yeah but I hate my Dad but I still wouldn't want him dead, you know?"

"I don't know," Yami groaned, "just…I don't know what I think…I think I'm sad but it's hard to tell. Think Yugi must be…"

"Yeah fair cop," Jou nodded, "your old man liked Yugi right?"

"Raised him," he submitted. "He's adopted though."

"Well if he wanted a kid why didn't he raise you?" The blonde frowned.

"_Argh_," Yami growled in frustration, "fucker never said. He never talked to me. Mum got the paternity test, was trying to rail him for child support, she died and then he popped me with Grandpa. He never even met me… I think cause I was illegitimate…" He wasn't sure. It was his only working theory. He'd never understand it now anyway.

"That's fucked up."

"I know right?" He chuckled.

"Dads suck."

"Amen."

* * *

><p>Walk Yugi to school, walk Yugi home, eat, sleep…routine fell back into order. Yami found they had sort of a unanimous understanding to stay out of each other's way. Yami showered in the evening, Yugi showered in the morning, Yami found he waited at least four minutes before entering the hallway after he heard Yugi's door open, and they avoided eye contact at the dinner table.<p>

Grandpa tried, he really did, either he wanted to see them have a blow out or he was worried they were hissing at each other under their breaths and he didn't know. Yami suspected he wanted to see them vent, see them cry, to know they were grieving. Yami hadn't cried yet though. Neither had he heard Yugi just down the hall. Grandpa did manage however to foster awkward small talk at the dinner table but working a smile out of Yugi seemed almost impossible. He was shy Yami found which was probably good because likewise Yami found himself afraid to speak.

A couple of weeks in Grandpa stopped going easy on him. He was back to drill sergeant: _do the dishes, you're working in the store on Sunday, you too Yugi_, clip Yami behind the ears with an open palm lovingly like the teenager was an overly big, lazy, cat… He wasn't an unreasonable old codger, he laughed a lot, it was just Grandpa's way of running the house. Yami found it comforting to be back to that: to hear Grandpa's normal voice not the overly gentle one he'd employed for a while and to just move on and pretend the whole upturn of the death had never happened. Yami would never get the chance to confront his father now so all he figured he could do was supress it and move on. Some people had parents. Yami just had to pretend he didn't.

Yugi wasn't as much as a brat as Yami had always assumed he was. Then again it was easier to think nasty things about someone when they were on the other side of the planet. In the Kame Game Shop Yugi never complained, he did what he was told, and Yami often found him cleaning without being asked. He woke up one Saturday to find Yugi on his knees scrubbing out the bathroom for no good reason. He offered to help in a grunt, Yugi turned him down in that same shy way and they left each other be.

Being in the store together was the weirdest. Yugi got shifts with Grandpa mostly or with Yami on occasion but he sure as hell wasn't being left alone with the stock just yet. The whole affair of sitting behind the counter gazing out the glass just seemed to highlight the silence Yami felt between them. It was warming up, less frigid, but still anxious. Yugi might've been mellowing to him but he was still stiff on an odd end with everything.

That was the thing: Yugi never complained but he never exactly asked for help either or company…

They could lure him downstairs for a history documentary, Grandpa liked making those family events, sort of compulsory and occasionally Ryou Bakura started making phone calls but other than those weak flourishes the radar was pretty quiet. Yami supposed Yugi liked his own company or he was devastatingly lonely.

His first hint came at midnight.

Yami looked like a blind racoon the last Friday of August about a month in. He'd been in bed, dying slowly of a fucking disgusting cold after he and Jou had fallen into the school pool. The snot clogging his nose meant he couldn't sleep without suffocating like a trapped vampire. So he lay on his side, cheek on the damp pillow, fingers trailing the carpet and heard the muffle…

Grandpa's hearing was going bad. He couldn't hear himself unless he raised his voice:

"You can talk to me," he assured down the hall Yami caught though the sound drifted in and out, "but you know if you wanted to talk to someone else we could try a counsellor maybe?-"

Yami didn't hear exactly what Yugi said but he gauged it was some kind of resistance.

"-It's okay," Grandpa Motou soothed, "I just think you'd feel better if you had someone to talk to-"

More resistance, sighs, opened doors, closed doors, silence.

Yami couldn't sleep.

* * *

><p>Normally Honda, Jou and Yami hit the arcade, roamed the streets, or crashed at the Game Shop. Honda's house wasn't big enough for them, Jou's wasn't inviting, and Yami's room had enough console equipment to put the video game store down the street to shame. Yami hadn't wanted to linger at home recently but Jou started pushing. They had a co-op game to finish, decks to trade cards between and a rematch to schedule so Yami had to surrender eventually.<p>

Honda pulled out at the last minute. Something about some English assignment he had to retake, that and he could never keep up with Duel Monsters talk. So come Friday night it was just Yami and Jou in his room setting down a duel board on the floor, shuffling…

_"You actually got magic and trap cards this time," Yami teased._

"Shut up!" Jou snorted. "That was like four years ago!"

"Two," he grinned, leaning across the mat to poke at Jou's ribs.

The blonde thwacked at him, eyes rolling, but then he caught something in his vision and turned his whole head.

"Hey," he nodded awkwardly, flashing one hand.

Yami turned.

"Hey," Yugi answered softly leaning into the frame of the open door, "Duel Monsters…?"

"Yeah," Jou nodded, he was trying so hard to be polite.

"Sorry," Yugi laughed weakly, seemed to realize he as staring. "I'll let you get back to it."

Yami caught the motion of Yugi's hands pushing off the frame to push himself back into the cradle of his feet and finally found his own voice around the knot in his stomach.

"You wanna watch Yugi?" He offered openly. Jou wasn't totally aware of the complete absence of communication between them. Yami tried to act natural in hopes that he would seem less like an idiot and maybe foster some ease back from the smallest Motou._  
><em>  
>"Yeah…?" Yugi paused a little uncertainly. "You sure?"<p>

"As long as you don't break my concentration," Jou grunted, a regular hoodlum in his slouch on the carpet drawing another card. It helped the tension.

Yugi laughed and easing the door almost shut after him clamoured carefully onto the mattress behind Yami's back. His legs crossed by Yami's shoulder, hands sequestered cautiously in his lap, as if he was afraid to touch anything. Yami felt his shoulders slacken a little, a tiny morsel of stage fright creeping in over a general wave of softer contentment.

This was okay, this was better…

He and Jou made eye contact briefly, too masculine to develop anything more than that and resumed playing.

Jou dug his hands in his hair, groaning.

Yami won.

They reshuffled and at Jou's insistence started again. The scraggly ex-gangster was intent on thrashing his mentor sooner rather than later but Yami had his confidence. Yugi leant in fractionally from the edge of the bed and after a turn or two feeling the other's motions behind him Yami raised his hand back. Yugi flinched but then seemed to realize the implication and sprawling on his stomach to inch closer inspected the cards in Yami's hand without having to crane his neck.

At first Yami wasn't sure if Yugi understood the game or he just desperately wanted to. Then he laughed, made tiny sounds or inhalations and Yami began to sense that just maybe the smallest Motou knew exactly what was going on.

Jou flipped a trap, Yugi made a delighted sound under his breath, Yami blinked, totally unfamiliar with the card, and Jou explained. Well that clinched it. Yugi knew.

"Maybe you should help him?" Yami joked over his shoulder to Yugi after Jou lost their fourth match. "I think he needs it!"

"Ah shuddup!" Jou grunted in a huff.

Yugi seemed to lean a little off the bed at the suggestion before he shrunk back, smile breaking nearly, and overcome with what Jou didn't seem to notice Yami unfurled his leg to kick the blonde's knee.  
><em><br>_"Don't be a sook." He chided.

Jou grumbled, losing his nerve, palming his elbow

"Thrash you in co-op?" Yami offered instead.

"Bah, you wish." He snorted.

Co-op Halo went well past midnight. Jou yawned open mouthed and ugly at the air. They sat crossed legged on the carpet facing the old TV mounted in Yami's room for these kinds of night and behind them Yugi kept quiet.

"I gotta pee," Yami confessed, button mashing.

"We're mid flood don't you fuck out on me now!" Jou panicked.

"Yugi, you do it," Yami diverted, thrusting the controller back as he scrambled up clumsily. "I'm _busting_."

Yugi flailed but caught the plastic and on instinct seemed to pick up the mashing. He knew where they were if he'd been paying attention to the game and Yami wasn't exactly in the mood to shout instructions but Jou seemed to have that covered when he fled.

When Yami came back, five or ten minutes later maybe, Yugi was telling _Jou_ to keep up. Gun fire, aliens swearing, the symphony of a teenage boy's room was complete and with that look of soothed concentration on his face Yugi seemed right at home with a handset.

Grandpa told them to turn off lights shortly after effectively banishing Yugi back to his room in the process. It wasn't much but by Jou's reckoning apparently he'd decided Yugi wasn't too bad or '_at least he can aim'_.

* * *

><p>First week of September Yugi spent the night at Ryou's. Yami didn't ask about it, Yugi didn't say much despite Grandpa's pestering but it seemed healthy. Yami felt a little better about it all when the kid showed some interest in hanging out with others. He would've offered Yugi admittance to his room more often but the smaller never really passed by often enough for Yami to make the whole thing seem casual. Embarrassingly big, bad, Yami Motou didn't have the balls to knock at Yugi's door and ask that way.<p>

Jou made it a little easier when he dragged Yami into a headlock outside the school and demanded they hit the arcade. Yugi probably could've made it home by himself at that point but it was a chance for Yami to offer a little more socialization when the smallest Motou emerged with Ryou to part ways for the walk home.

"Hey Yugi!" He called, shoving a Jou hard. "Honda, Jou and I are going to the arcade. You want to come?"

"Yeah!" He perked from where his expression had fallen ever so slightly. "Ryou you want to come too?"

"If you don't mind…?" Bakura was a mousy kid, he seemed to pale at the offer when he took in just how big Honda and Jou were.

"Come on then," Yami gestured, "it's all good."

It took a little to involve them. Not that Ryou or Yugi seemed disinterested but they strayed off by themselves and Yami lost track of them. They caught each other once or twice in the arcade. Jou dragged Yugi into a shot up, Ryou could DDR, Honda was nervous, all and all it was okay. Yugi looked different when he was flushed, when he smiled, when he laughed…. Yami fought a little bubble of uneasy pride that he couldn't make sense of.

* * *

><p>The last week of September Yami was casually uneasy at dinner. He grunted like any other teenage boy, feigned disinterest like he was too old for anything to be exciting, and found it surreal he could quash the fear-come-longing of wondering if this would be the year his father called for his birthday. It was nearly depressing, yet sickeningly freeing and joyous all at once. The weirdness of his seventeenth was knowing Yugi was in the house. Traditionally Yami hated Yugi's existence most on his birthdays. This year he was just queasy with an odd compote of grief, butterflies, hope and resentment. It was all way too complicated.<p>

Yugi smiled though at the dinner table, barefooted and cross legged in a raggedy old band tee and jeans. Grandpa still led most of their conversation over the pizza but Yugi didn't hesitate to lick his fingers now anyway and he sung when the old man broke out the cake.

"Don't spend it all at once," Grandpa ordered, passing him an envelope with spending money as Yami licked chocolate frosting off this thumb.

"Thanks Gramps," he grinned, the old man couldn't keep up with what collector's items Yami did and didn't own anymore so he gave him hard cash for online spending and arcade sessions.

It was generous spending money at that. Yami tended to use a chunk of it to buy Jou something the blonde couldn't otherwise afford himself. Jou tended to give him cards he'd traded for or find Yami some great old PC game by rifling through every second hand and bargain bin in the city game stores.

The surprise came when Yugi shoved his package across the table next. Yami blinked, mouth uncomfortably full of cake, and tried to swallow.

"Happy Birthday," a soft smile and actual eye contact commenced, "it was the only one I was sure you didn't have yet."

"Thanks," Yami failed at eloquence or smiles with chocolate suctioning his gums.

"_Chew_," Grandpa chided.

Yami tore the wrapping, flipped the upside down box and promptly choked. He tried not to swear.

"Oh my god!" He whistled.

_Legendary Collection 3_ Duel Monsters 2012 release with the _Seal of Orichalcos_ trap card and not to mention about twelve other ultra rare releases, three illustrations, collapsible game board… Oh god fucking _beautiful_…

"I didn't even know this was out yet!"

"Last week," Yugi grinned sheepishly.

"You're amazing," Yami flounced stupidly, throwing his arm open to beckon. "Come here."

Yami forgot himself in a moment of nerdgasm. It wasn't until Yugi was up against his side for a hug that he realized what he'd done. He tried not to colour, heart lurching in a splutter, and squeezed back dumbly with genuine strength. They came together, they pulled apart, Yugi laughed and they sat back. It occurred to Yami that for the first time, ever, he'd hugged what was essentially his unknown baby brother. The hated sibling, the usurper, and he was okay with that…

* * *

><p>Grandpa seemed to take it all as a sign they'd be okay without him for a while. He picked up another offer from Professor Hawkins to globe trot for a month or two and give his opinion on something or another. He swore to be back by the end of term break for their report cards. Left Yami with the bank card, all the numbers, and gave him the biggest lecture Yami had gotten since being left alone in the store at twelve.<p>

"Don't leave Yugi alone on afternoon shifts," he fussed again, "eat proper meals, go to bed at a proper hour, call me if anything-"

"I know!" Yami grunted, hefting the bag into the taxi. "I know Grandpa, I've got it, I'm okay. I'm not twelve. You've abandoned me before. Go have fun."

"You're the eldest this time," Grandpa warned. "Don't get up to trouble."

"We'll be fine," he sighed though at it Yami found himself tickled with nerves.

He and Yugi, alone to fend for themselves for a month or more sounded… who knew? Yami couldn't have pictured it six months ago and he was scared to now. Having Grandpa gone meant tedium, responsibility, but also wild freedom in equal measure. Sure he had to do all his own laundry but it meant no one was on his back to eat green beans every day and he and Jou had more than once skipped a day of school to take a train to Tokyo. So long as mass amounts of money didn't leave the savings account and Yami got good grades Grandpa didn't check receipts.

This time Yami wouldn't be properly alone. No porn in the lounge room. No closing the store early or eating pizza every second night. No three hour phone calls. No forgetting homework or showing up late to school. Well, Yami could probably still do all that the problem was he wasn't sure how far or how little he could or couldn't go with Yugi round. Would Yugi want to mess around? Would he complain? Would Yami actually manage to steal him out of his room for more than an hour a day? Did Yami want to be a good influence or a role model or a big brother…? Did he want to talk about anything important…?

Grandpa dragged him down for a hug, Yami waved him off in the cab, Yugi stood on the corner tugging his hoodie in round him tighter and with a tiny smile joined the wave before they headed back inside.

Yugi showered, came down wet in pj pants and his zip up hoodie while Yami rifled through the fridge.

"Pizza?" Yami suggested nearly hesitant. It was strange to be unsupervised.

"Definitely," Yugi shrugged finding his backpack by the backdoor, "can we get a whole one each?"

"Sure," he grunted, "bout another hour and I'll call?"

"Sounds good," Yugi drifted back towards the stairs with a handful of books.

Stop him or don't stop him? Yami let him go but he promised himself he'd insist on them eating together. They did in the end but in front of the TV and without any real conversation over the Simpsons. Yugi could eat, Yami'd give him that, there wouldn't be left overs.

* * *

><p>At eleven Yami could tell from the light down the hallway that Yugi was still awake and when he paused his game there was this creeping, lonely, urge to go confront the younger boy. Yami fell back into his carpet and gazed at the ceiling. In three months he hadn't really seen the inside of Yugi's room. They hadn't really had a conversation by themselves yet either.<p>

Yami had spent years wondering what Yugi was like…

As far as Grandpa Motou told it Yugi had been adopted a little after Yami turned one. Yugi was two when Yami was three and his mom started chasing paternities. She died before he was four, start of the year, and she wasn't a bad woman but she didn't have any family in condition to look after a kid. Yami's father, Yugi's dad, obviously didn't want him for whatever reason.

Yami had spent years trying to get it. To understand a man he'd never spoken to and a kid he'd never met who were both on the other side of the planet. No mum, no dad, and a shit load of resentment. He sat up, played with his fingernails and knew that he'd thought a lot of very nasty things of his father. He still did. The only person who knew him, really, was Yugi and Yugi didn't seem so bad. He was kind, he was quiet and gentle and they weren't so unalike. Yami kind of wanted to know, he'd always wanted to know, but part of him was a little anxious about what Yugi might say. His life was easier if they got along. Was Yugi trying ultra-hard to be nice or was he really just shy, disorientated and grieving? Did Yugi actually think anything good of him? Yami was paranoid by nature.

He still wondered if Grandpa Motou resented his son for sticking him with Yami when he should've been retired. He wondered why Grandpa Motou didn't insist his son raise Yami. He wondered why his father didn't just overturn custody to the state or let his mum's family duel it out. He didn't get it. He didn't get why his father wanted Yugi and not him. He felt like he'd been traded for Yugi, like they'd split lives and Yugi was supposed to grow up in Domino and not across the planet between amazing European cities.

Yugi would have one hell of an inheritance, Yami hadn't heard the exact figure and Grandpa wouldn't tell him much about the will but he didn't doubt Yugi was getting most of everything. Why would his father leave Yami anything now? How did he die anyway? Jet crash right…? Yami found it sad he didn't even remember something that happened four months ago.

Yami hadn't cried yet, too much dazed shell shock, but had Yugi? Surely Yugi had. He needed to. Unless Yami's father was an asshole to everyone… Was he? Yami had no idea. Did he want to know Yugi had a terrible childhood and his father was actually monstrous? Maybe, it meant Yami wasn't some defect child unworthy of affection. What had Yami's father told Yugi about him? What impression did he give other people of his only biological child?

Eleven thirty by the bedside clock. Yami inhaled. He probably didn't have the balls to say anything he wanted to say but he found strength to push off the floor and stride uneasily down the hallway.

Yami paused, gathered, and knocked. It felt ridiculously formal. Brothers didn't knock did they? Fuck…

"Yeah?" Yugi called. A second later he was opening the door, leaning into the gap and Yami felt stuck.

"Hey," Yami rasped, "can I hang out with you…?"

"Sure," Yugi faltered, suddenly tender and weak. Eye contact broke, he seemed uneasy and then he peeled the door back to let Yami in.

Yami shut it after him. Somehow it felt right, more private, and slinking back gracefully Yugi slumped unceremonious onto the edge of the mattress. Yami's eyes roamed. Yugi had gotten the little spare room with the single bed and the skylight. It felt cosy now there was actually stuff on the shelves and posters on the wall. It was cool, chilly, but there was a light and a space to the room and the sloping roof. Yugi's laptop, the glass globes he had staked under the far window, the little string of Christmas lights round the bedhead…the room twinkled with low lights.

"Cute…" Yami mumbled gently.

"Kinda silly," Yugi shrugged, the fingers of one hand curling round the pinkie of the other. One set of toes brushed the carpet his second foot under the opposing knee…He was just as cute as the low lights.

"As long as it feels like home," Yami supposed sheepishly, leaning back into the door with the small of his back crushing his hands.

"Kinda…"

Yami blinked. Suddenly it felt right to push off the door at the whisper and come to sit on the edge of Yugi's bed. The smaller shuffled back and rolling his palms in his lap Yami tried to think of a sentence that didn't taste trite inside his mouth.

"You okay…?" It was the best he could think of on short notice.

"With what?" Yugi deferred eyes skirting his sheets.

"I don't know," he mumbled, "being here and stuff…"

"It's weird." The younger confessed but stalled his vocals over anything else.

"You don't talk a lot," Yami remarked.

"Heh…" Yugi's shoulders bounced at the breathless sound. "I don't know what to say…"

"It's okay," he promised, then uncertainly tried again. "Hey…am I…are we good?"

"Us?" The smaller blinked up at him. "Yeah, I think so. Are we good?"

"I like you." Yami nodded weakly. "I just don't know what to do sometimes. I'm bad at this…"

"No," Yugi insisted, "you're really sweet."

"Thanks," he broke into a provisional smile. "Are…are you okay about…ya know?"

Yugi frowned, didn't understand and then in the low light comprehend the supposition. He cringed a little round the lips, brows twitching, glancing back to his lap.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he responded on reflex. Yami almost expected him to deflect the question back but the smaller didn't even consider it rather he appeared to want the subject buried quickly.

"I didn't think this would happen," Yami mumbled, "I didn't think I'd ever meet you."

"Yeah…" Yugi nodded. "I know what you mean."

"I'm sorry…"

"For what?" He whispered.

"I don't know." Yami sighed sullen. "I suck at shit like this. I don't know what to say."

"I'm clueless." Yugi snorted. "I have no idea what to do anymore. Everything's different. I can't get comfy…"

"Can I help?" He offered.

"You do," the smaller smiled tightly.

"When was the last time you got a hug?" It just fell out from the ether. Yami felt disconnected till he didn't even really notice what the words were. Then Yugi was staring at him.

"I don't know," Yugi stumbled, a little shaken as he continued to ring his fingers. "W-well your birthday I guess…"

His voice broke over it. In the gaps Yami caught a swallow, a tension in the arched face and his heart strings twisted. He shuffled on the rim of the mattress, hands fumbling, taking Yugi's elbow between his fingers carefully to squeeze. The smaller sniffed tight, lips pursed, and was almost there. Yami's fingers flexed, roamed up and down his arm in a clumsy motion and all arms Yugi took another ragged breath and gave in. His arms tangled, sinking round Yami's neck and on natural instinct Yami caught him. He wrapped him up, pulled Yugi into his chest, and not quite himself buried his face against the other's scalp.

Yami squeezed, Yugi's arms flexed tight round his shoulder's little fingers curling in his shirt over his back and Yami began to accustom himself to the weight, the warmth, the push. Arms round the smaller's middle he didn't really want to move and when in the silence he felt slickness against his bare neck he didn't dare.

Yugi sniffed, wracked through a hiccup, but didn't really cry the way Yami expected. It was all inside, all quiet tears dripping along his clavicle as the smaller nestled his face in and tried to breathe. Yami's mouth rested on the crest of his skull, eyes down, and he just held on. Nothing else felt appropriate. Questions died but Yugi was lush and safe and silly but right in his arms. Yami was glad he could hold him, had a compressed rush of content relief they could be close and they could be kind to each other.

Yami rocked him, rearranged them, and felt weirdly better.

Yugi drew a hand back, batting at his face under Yami's chin, and dragged the back of his palm under his nose. He sniffed. Yami didn't even consider unlacing his arms.

"Thanks."

"It's okay," Yami had never gotten to be the protector before. It was comforting. Could he do this more often? His palm ran idly along Yugi's spine as the smaller curled and recovered, the wave of moist tears apparently abating.

"I'm sorry," Yugi mumbled in a rasp against him.

"For what?" He snorted.

"I don't know…"

"Don't worry about it." Yami whispered.

Something was supposed to come next. Yami could trace the feeling, the prompt, that he was supposed to be doing something in particular but it was on the tip of his tongue exactly what. His stomach turned, he supressed it to try and fathom a plan B instead.

So they peeled apart. Not so awkwardly but gently and still wet from the tears. They brushed teeth at the sink in the upstairs bathroom. Called goodnight down the hall and Yami crushed himself into his own bed.

* * *

><p>It was a little louder in the house from then on but Yami still didn't know what to say, how to approach, other than to let Yugi read on his bed while he played video games. He didn't know how to start anything least of all a conversation. He knew nothing about Yugi except years of second hand whispers. He was afraid to touch at it, to ask, and Yugi it appeared was just as hogtied.<p>

The second Wednesday after Grandpa left they were on the couch. Yugi seemed to be doing maths problems, half watching the TV, while Yami hunched into the coffee table and tried to read history. Nothing stuck. He found his eyes wandering instead to the dirty dishes on the table from dinner. Yugi could make pasta. It was yum.

"Hey," Yami quirked.

"Hmm?" He glanced from the book across his thighs.

Crossing the divide from silence to sound always felt huge.

"Do you eat meat?"

"Nah," Yugi muttered easily.

"I just figured," Yami shrugged, "I realized I haven't seen you eat any and…yeah…anyway."

Yugi grinned, gave that half breathless laugh of his and glanced back down.

His stomach lurched. An epiphany rattled at his ribs.

"Hey…" Yami's tongue fell over itself, knotting. "I've got a really stupid idea."

"Like what?" Yugi lowered his book again easily.

"Can we try something where we just…" He took a deep breath. "I don't know, pretend we're not related, that we don't know each other. Just start?"

"Like start fresh?" He supposed. Yugi didn't sound condescending, or mean, or flippant or like he was about to laugh. Yami felt a little less ridiculous given the way the other boy seemed to taste the idea.

"Yeah," Yami nodded, "just try and forget everything and be us. Maybe then I'll sound less like a retard."

"You don't," Yugi promised, "you say weirdly smart thing like this. Can we try?"

He nodded.

"I'm Yugi," the smaller smiled.

"Yami," he snorted.

"You're really handsome." Yugi grinned.

Yami floundered. Wha? Yugi laughed and drew the book up over his face. Unable to do anything else Yami turned his face over under his fingers, running his nails through his hair, and let the air change. The mood lightened.

"I'm bored." Yugi confessed lightly, propping the book back down and stretching his hands over head.

Yami just let himself run with it. They just needed momentum.

"What do you want to do?"

"Don't know," he shrugged, "what's still open?"

"Hmmm…" Yami inhaled thoughtfully. "Arcade closed about an hour ago. Movies?"

"What do you usually do when Grandpa's not here?"

"Not much," he laughed. "Things I shouldn't do mostly. Jou and I skip school sometimes to hop on train trips for the day."

"Where do you go?" Yugi prodded, inkling in towards his knees to lean a little closer.

"Tokyo mainly," Yami shrugged off hand, "it's cool."

"I've never been."

"You been to a lot of places?"

"Yeah," Yugi shrugged as if it meant nothing, suppressing. "I've always really wanted to go to Tokyo though."

"You want to go on the weekend?" Yami proposed lazily.

There was a moment, a tiny contemplation, and pausing hesitantly over himself Yugi seemed to think before he spoke next. He managed however, softly, to attempt what he wanted to say:

"Could we skip school…?" He suggested.

"Grandpa'd kill me…" Yami laughed under his breath, unable to look away at the trepidatious and lingering face watching him. "But we_ could_…if you want…"

Yugi nodded slowly, cautiously.

"What's one day going to hurt?" Yami reinforced, finding his own cheek and a bigger, mischievous, grin as Yugi bit his lip. That kind of sounded good. He liked this. There was a tickling of heat licking inside his lower stomach. Trouble.

"It's just a day…" Yugi shrugged, tripping over his quiet musing.

"Go get a backpack." Yami ordered gravelly, grinning, excited.

"Backpack?"

"Warm jacket, keys, phone, wallet, water," Yami counted off slowly. He realized that he didn't have Yugi's number. It stung a little but he pushed it away. "Make it light and we'll bring some chocolate just in case."

"Okay," Yugi laughed brokenly, had he ever done anything rambunctious? Yami sensed he was probably instantaneous but he doubted somehow that Yugi had ever broken a lot of rules.

Yami pushed himself up, sensed Yugi would follow if he kept them moving and sure enough the little one unlaced himself from the couch.

* * *

><p>"You do this a lot?" Yugi whispered as Yami locked the store front door behind them. At ten on a Wednesday in outer city Domino it was cold and bitterly quiet down the street. Yugi rubbed his arms and Yami barely heard the question over the wind.<p>

"You warm enough?" He fussed.

"Yeah I'm fine," Yugi retorted nonchalantly. "You do this a lot?"

"At least every now and again," Yami smiled, extending his hand. "You ready?"

"I think," he snorted, but whatever nerves were mingling under the skin Yugi didn't appear to even realize he was taking Yami's hand.

Yami laced their fingers, pressing his tight into the back of Yugi's hand with the pads of his digits and tugged the younger Motou down the street.

There was this odd, lightening, catharsis that accompanied each step like the wind was peeling back layers to this tingling newness so that when Yami reached the train station he felt fresh. Beside him Yugi looked like a stranger, new, different and shiny all twinkling with flushed, anxious, expectation. They might as well have been on the edge of something very high and tall about to take a deep breath and a big leap into the fathomless, airless, unknown.

The funny detail in the portrait was, Yami realized, that when he looked at Yugi he _didn't_ know him at all. They were two different species from two utterly divorced worlds with a common ancestor from some draconian part of their evolutionary history as people. Yugi was otherness, foreign and alien, strange but exciting when Yami put down the sword of the aggressor and attempted his hand at explorer or anthropologist.

They got a look at the ticket desk. One of those late night adult _'the hell are you doing?' _glances that never amounted to anything from lazy cashiers in Yami's experience so long as you looked easy going enough. They had a half decent window up to the sky between the platforms and as they waited Yugi locked himself on the horizon.

"It's just black." He complained. No stars.

"It sucks." Yami sympathised.

The Tokyo trains at this hour were empty but bright. Tickets burning a hole in their pockets they sunk into a set of horribly upholstered seats by the back of the carriage away from the chill of the opening platform doors. The light of the carriage blinded them to anything outside their reflections and with nothing better to look at Yami let Yugi have the window throwing their bags on the opposing row of seats. His booted feet followed onto the edge of the seat directly opposing him but Yugi invested instead in turning his back into the window for better comfort, arms round his thighs, pulling them up into his chest languidly.

They clunked, they moved, Yami slouched but felt easy. Was this what brothers did? He asked it briefly but the thought extinguished itself under the more appealing fantasy that Yugi was a stranger. Yugi smiled.

"What's it like in Venice?" Yami shot brazenly, altogether lazy and feigning ignorance of any potential pain.

"Wet," Yugi answered dully, half trying to downplay deeper conversation of it Yami supposed or otherwise trying to nullify any special appeal. "It's literally sinking back into the sea. Mother nature's taking her toys back."

"Paris?"

"Full of stairs and French people." He complained cheekily.

"Heh," he grinned, "Scotland?"

"Wind."

"England?"

"Hm…" Yugi hummed a little thoughtfully. "Dirty. The food's bland."

"Ireland?"

"Teen mommies, babies and beggars," he played along.

"Heh," Yami chuckled, hand resting on his navel. "Egypt?"

"I don't tan I lobster."

"Ha!" He cracked into a smile, jolting a little in his seat, sagging back with a laugh. "Greece?"

"Glad I don't drive." Yugi grinned with teeth, giggling.

"Japan?"

"Surreal," he confessed a little more mildly, "I don't like chopsticks. I feel like there's nothing I eat here. Transports cool, culture's weird, the pace at school's frantic, the architecture's bizarrely beautiful, and everyone seems _nearly_ polite and kind of cold. I feel like I'm always late or lost or I don't know something. If I couldn't read, write and speak it I think I'd cry."

"Trust me, you're not the only one," Yami snorted. "There's always _something_ else going on. It's like the only place that's quiet is at home."

"I just…" Yugi feigned. "It's like no one's special. Everyone's all uniformed. You're not supposed to be sassy or laid back. It's easy to feel little or forgotten and…It's just…_fuck_," Yami blinked, "it's so fucking constrictive. Itchy. I just wish I could take a break and get some sleep and be left in peace for a fucking second. Does anyone here ever just break to smell the roses for a few days?"

Yami laughed, awkwardly, at the peeling back of some kind of restraint. Yugi suddenly spoke like a person but he curled in a little, frustrated, his head lulling back into the window with a sigh. Yami could nearly feel the itch himself, he did sometimes, that cultural incentive to function in the machine he would've rather forgot. There was this urge to throw off the blanket and just run off and have an adventure, be irresponsible, that ate at him. The fact Yugi felt that pulse was…

"We do," he decided finally, "we fuck school and skip town."

"Heh," Yugi smiled, relaxing fractionally yet still coiled. "Can we skip continents?"

"Not unless you take me with you," Yami snorted, "and I don't think Grandpa has quite that much on the card."

"We'd make it to Australia." The smaller pestered. "It's a continent."

"Good for Australia."

"That place is hardwired to kill." Yugi embarked. "Most of the countryside is literally, biologically, built to just spontaneously combust every few years. Like aboriginals used to back burn to make things grown back and now the trees have adapted to just burst into mass forest fires all on their own."

"Pfft, yeah okay, I feel less bad about letting you skip school."

Yugi laughed, buried his face in his knees, peeking back up a moment later. Yami almost winced for encouraging the retreat. Then again they weren't exactly naturally compatible for school discussions. Yami didn't pay attention, was pretty resolved to academic failure and hardy against it. Yugi, home-schooled and flighty or not, obviously made the effort. They brushed a little harshly on that topic. Yami's nature as the punk tough-guy stereotype must've seemed downright exotic like the opposite side of the tracks.

"Hey," Yugi prefaced quietly, "how'd you meet you Jou?"

"You like him?" Yami fished.

"Yeah," he nodded sincerely, "just…little shy."

"Figured," Yami quirked his lips up gently, "he's a nice guy though. He'd keep an eye out for you."

"Bet," Yugi allowed before resuming, "how'd you guys…?"

"I don't like school. Jou was almost never there in the seventh grade but when he was we'd fight like scorpions. I thought he was a total douche, all posture and piss and bullshit." Yami realized a second too late he didn't want to sound so crass in front of Yugi. "We got detention, had to clean shit up together, realized he wasn't so bad and we talked and he started coming to school more. I got involved with him. Realized he was pretty great but he was in all this stupid gang shit so we…we sort of had to untangle him a bit."

"How'd that go?"

"Pretty messy," Yami cringed, "got a little dirty. It was all these stupid drop outs picking on a bunch of high school guys. They tried to give Jou shit for leaving. I got involved cause I can never pull my head out of my ass and just walk away from something when someone starts it and then… yeah my bright idea lead to another and we…" he tried not to colour. "We brought down a roof in the factory district and got arrested."

"Were you okay?" Yugi jolted.

"I think everyone got taken to the hospital." Yami shrugged. "I was fine, just scratches and stuff. Jou was pretty beat up. Those jackasses were _wrecked_ though so I felt pretty proud of myself. Till Grandpa hung me out to dry…"

"That's nice," the other tried to word appropriately obviously feeling sheepish, "it's great you'd stick up for someone that far you know? I just…I sit in my room. I'm boring."

"I don't know the meaning of self-restraint." Yami condemned in condolence. "I spend most of my time grounded."

"Kept your nose pretty clean lately," Yugi appealed.

"Till the whole kidnapping you right now thing, right?" He laughed, gesturing.

"Consensual kidnapping doesn't really count."

"Consensual kidnapping?" Yami snorted turning over the phrase.

"Yeah, I think its Latin for _Date_ basically," Yugi teased.

Yami's mind did another funny little stall and Yugi's must've followed cause when they made eye contact, lips twitching, they both fell sheepishly back into silence. They'd brushed a wall of something intangible and embarrassed or bound sunk back away from the perimeter like they'd been scolded for hitting it.

Yugi forced his forearms between his thighs, smile breaking and receding silently like its own miniature ebbing tide.

* * *

><p>The sun was forcing itself up, trying to break the womb of the night, when Yami's chin sagged weakly into his shoulder and jolted him up for the forty-seventh time. Yugi had his cheek plastered to the cold of the window, all curled into his side and shoulder, staring brokenly through barely parted lids in his own groggy fight for consciousness. Yami had this desire to just slump his weight onto Yugi and make them even more uncomfortable but he sensed it might break the air somehow or bones creaking force them into a worse tangle of aching limbs.<p>

"Almost there," Yami mumbled, fighting to keep his lead filled lids open.

"Hmm," Yugi grumbled, "we have any food?"

"Chocolate?"

"Argh," he moaned, "god no…"

Yami felt his own queasiness at the idea. Somehow solid chocolate sounded god awful right then and there but ice cream or left over pizza were oddly more palatable to his imagination. He forced himself up, hefted the nearest backpack and passed Yugi the water. He skulled.

"Thanks," he rasped between mouthfuls, "morning."

"Morning," he snorted belatedly, even if the sky was still heavily dyed indigo.

"We need to get breakfast when we get off this," Yugi ordered mildly, "and a proper bathroom."

"Seats are so damn cramped." Yami complained, working the kink in his shoulder and stretching his arms over his head.

The train pulled in fifteen minutes later. The station was almost empty bar the beginning tide of morning commuters in and out of the capital for office work across the island. They were all a flutter of suits and pinstripes and heels between early tourists and Yugi and Yami were perhaps the only pair to disembark their train which was promptly refilled heartily with new commuters headed in the opposite direction. Yami knew from experience so long as they looked slack they'd be dismissed as tourists. Cops didn't exactly have time to tug up every kid in Tokyo and ask him why he wasn't at school not in the main drags anyway.

Yugi swept water over his face in the bathroom, scrubbed at it with paper towel and disappeared into a stall for a few moments while Yami leant into a wall and zipped up his pants. Yugi was practiced to travel, accustomed, and he was ready in a moment or two looking zappy and refreshed.

"Okay, food?" He supposed.

"Hopefully something's open."

They found a diner appealing to the yanks that opened early for coffee a block or two away and the first semi-decent place they spied they filed in carelessly. Not ten minutes later Yugi was clucking off the menu and grabbing cutlery.

"Can't spend too much," Yami warned hesitantly, a little guiltily.

"Yes we can," Yugi flipped out a card from his wallet, "I'll pay."

"You…you sure?" He paled.

"Yes, need food," the smaller snorted rolling his eyes playfully at Yami's stern back. "Relax, I've got like a grand in my normal account, I can transfer more over from savings whenever we get home. What else am I going to spend it on? I'm _starving_ and I want a milkshake."

"If you're sure," he shrugged uncomfortably.

"Hey," Yugi intoned cautious suddenly when the waitress blustered off, "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to…"

Rub in the fact he had a massive inheritance? Yugi cringed a little back into his seat, swiping the card back under his palm protectively, perhaps ashamed, but Yami shook his head and managed to smile. No, that wasn't it.

"It's okay," he dismissed, "I know you're not. I just want to be the one treating us to a day out I guess. I feel cheap."

Like a fuck up big brother or a cheap date?

"Time's worth more." Yugi murmured hopefully trying to stray them back to smiles and Yami heartened himself on that.

"Yeah," he supposed, "sides this way Grandpa will never know eh?"

"Exactly," Yugi grinned.

Yugi got his thick, syrupy, milkshake and sunk back in the red leather booth with a pleasured purr round the straw before offering a mouthful to Yami. Shit the stuff was thick with liquefied ice cream, rich too, but the more European tastebuds seemed to appreciate it. Yugi certainly responded just as well to having actual cutlery and fried eggs, salty bacon, and white bread. It was still a bit of a cliché, a little foreign and kitschy to Yami. Yugi licked his fingers, picked the bacon apart and seemed happy while the bigger boy found it all kind of heavy to start the day with.

"Fuck," Yugi purred, "I miss proper food."

"Are you supposed to be eating bacon?" Yami frowned suddenly. "I thought…"

"I try," the other shrugged, thumb in his mouth. "Vegetarian police are going to have to give me a warning this time. I _need_ the whole fry up; starving man at sea."

"We can go to the big grocery store in Domino?" Yami shrugged into his knuckles as he pressed his chin against the back of his palm. "They've got more stuff if you want?"

"That okay?"

"Just means a taxi ride."

"I don't want to be a picky bitch." He cringed apologetically. "I like Japanese it's just tiring. Grandpa's real traditional sometimes…"

"Meh, we'll manage," Yami dismissed. He liked providing in the weirdest old world way. All farmers and wheat fields and wanting to feed the mouths of six hungry urchins was the imagery that the primal feeling brought to him. He _wanted_ to be the provider, the man of the house, like he was a bear or something. It was a savage tickle.

Yugi smiled. Yami wasn't real good at the light, bright, smiles Yugi could pull off in those effortless moments of thoughtlessness but he could do his own tight, quiet, punk smiles. Yami had a grin that came from years of trying to trick himself into thinking he was too big and bad to laugh like a kid.

Yugi spoke a little more throughout the day but he had these odd moments where he obviously felt odd ended, out of place, and apologetic for contrasting tastes. They ripped up the electronics stores with envious longing and chatter about release dates. Yugi knew about gigabytes and megabytes and terabytes. It made Yami squelch up joyously inside and the smaller seemed at home when Yami seemed at home.

Yami only went down Harajuku, into the clothing stores and the big centres because Yugi wanted to but somehow he sensed his surrender wasn't appreciated. Yugi moved too quickly between stores he obviously would've liked to linger in and admirably eyeing a bookstore passed right by it without stopping. When Yugi properly caught Yami leaning in a wall waiting for him to finish window shopping the younger seemed irreparably embarrassed.

"I don't care," Yami tried to defend, "I don't mind, it's fine. Seriously, take your time."

"Nah, I'm fine, I'm done." Yugi insisted with a forced smile. He wasn't, Yami could tell but the smaller wanted to be out of the mall ASAP now regardless of what Yami said.

Yugi didn't expel any of those funny little conversation changes of his after that, he let Yami lead the tangent, and the bigger boy felt bitterly incompetent. Shit, he was bad at this.

Sour and awkward between them they ate lunch. Food cleared the air, gave them an excuse to comfortably shut up and Yami supposed of a way they could perhaps mend more amicably and sort of wordlessly apologise.

"There's this mega arcade a block over," he explained.

Yugi lit up round a mouthful of pizza.

Yami's insides thawed a little.

"Sweet," he exclaimed casually. "What about manga by the way?"

"There's comics on like the forth floor actually, I think," Yami added with his own eagerness, he could browse comics without looking bored. He liked manga.

"Comics then arcade?" Yugi suggested.

"Just let me finish my drink."

* * *

><p>The arcade took them through the afternoon. School was just an hour from getting out when they caught the train home and in time for a considerably late dinner when they got home. Yugi cooked again, Yami did dishes, they hid purchases and watched a long awaited super hero movie over food till nearly eleven.<p>

"Bed?" Yugi sighed, flicking off the dvd player.

"Yeah, I'm going to shower in the morning," Yami agreed.

"Hey," the smaller shuffled to the edge of the couch casually sinking in to wrap his arms loosely round Yami's neck where the bigger sat on the carpet leaning back into the couch. He squeezed just a little. "Thanks for taking me. Today was awesome."

"Don't sweat it," Yami postured toughly, squeezing Yugi's forearm under his fingers.

"Thanks Yami," he pecked his cheek with another squeeze, pulling away sloppily in the immediate aftermath.

* * *

><p>Yami felt better when he walked them to school in the morning even if he had to go to Domino High with homework he hadn't touched. Yugi was less foreign, a little closer, a little better at smiling to him under his fringe.<p>

Yami had these ideas when he walked them home, good ideas, about making a trip out for grocery shopping on Friday afternoon and staying up all night or something. He wanted a little more, he wanted to get a little better at Yugi's language and fight his way round that funny wall of self-consciousness they kept hitting. He wanted to find an excuse to fold Yugi and Ryou a little closer, a little tighter, into his social circle while he tried to mend and patch things in their silence at home. They had space.

"Hey kids!"

Grandpa greeted when Yami unlocked the back kitchen door, coming through from upstairs. Yami felt ashamed to admit his heart sunk.

"Hey Grandpa," Yugi forced a smile, "what are you doing home?"

"Dig finished early," he grunted, "would've called to warn you two but I would've missed the next flight home. Old bones playing up on me wanted a nap."

"That's kay," the smaller shrugged, "welcome home."

"You two have fun without me?"

"Yeah," Yami forced a chuckle, heart sunk. No, why was he home now? Couldn't Yami just steal another four or five days? He thought he'd had another month. "Didn't do much."

"Good, should've been studying."

"Yeah, yeah," he groaned eyes rolling.

Yugi said all the good child things, was friendly, but Yami did notice that he was the first and last member of the house to hug Grandpa tightly. Yugi was touched by the old man, shoulders thrown under the thick set old arm, and he smiled twitchingly but didn't turn into it instead he disappeared upstairs a moment later.

As a matter of fact Yugi didn't seem to come downstairs after that.

* * *

><p>AN: part 2 up soon. I will be moving for the next few days so if I don't respond to reviews immediately please forgive me. Hope you all enjoyed and have a lovely evening.


	2. Chapter 2

_**LEGITIMATE CONCERNS:**_

/N: Hey again, thanks for all the favourites and such. In the next fortnight I will be posting a oneshot called _Crowbar_. More details on that at the bottom.

Rating: MA+  
>Pairings: YamiYugi  
>Universe: AU<br>Part: 1/2  
>Summary: When unexpected fortune forces the Motou children together Yami is pushed into an awkward co-existence with the boy he's never met and always resented.<p>

* * *

><p>School, study, sleep, trudge, tedium, walk home and back all without ever seeming to have proper time to talk to Yugi. Yami ached funnily at it. He just wanted one good hour, one good night, to feel that brittle contentment he could create between them that was peaceful and soft. Yugi could smile properly, he could talk, and he could hug when he wasn't hiding in his room studying all the time.<p>

Yami got sick of it, felt the jet lag of absence, and when his balls realized Grandpa had settled down, nesting in for a while, and had no intention of flinging off across the sea anytime soon he had to gather himself for a game plan. He wanted to remedy the silence. He wanted Yugi nearby, close, happy…he didn't know he just… _Fuck_. Complicated, feelings, old wounds.

He rattled Yugi's door a week or two later, rapping his knuckles on the back of the wood.

"Yugi?"

"Yeah?" The other called.

Yami stuck his head in.

"I'm going to bed."

"Night," the other called over his shoulder from the desk, "sleep tight."

"You too."

Well it was better than nothing, at least Yugi smiled.

He tried again on Tuesday.

On Wednesday the motion was easier.

By Thursday he was finding a groove, a habit.

On Friday he stayed up till midnight playing _Portal_. Grandpa was dozing downstairs through a good documentary on the one subject that didn't fascinate Yami or Yugi: Vietnam. Footsteps padded round the bathroom and up the hall round twelve-ten.

"Hey Yami," Yugi introduced opening the door without the formality of knocking which somehow was more personal, "I'm going to bed."

"Night," he responded automatically, heart fluttering.

Yugi padded in to the edge of the bed. Yami paused, controller to one side in a dismissive flourish, trying likewise not to appear too engrossed in the other as Yugi's arms came round his neck quickly and Yami was given an occasion to hold back. Yugi pulled them apart briskly, too soon, pecked his cheek and Yami had an impulse to return the gesture but didn't get the chance in time.

"Can you turn the volume down a little?" Yugi appealed.

"Sure," he promised, finding the remote.

"Night," the other parted.

* * *

><p>Grandpa went to bed round twelve thirty but at one am Yami was still sitting there restlessly even with the console abandoned. He sighed, metaphysically itchy, and bounced his knee on the mattress. He had an impulse that wanted scratching, some fathomless phantom without a shape running up his spine.<p>

He listened. Grandpa was snoring.

He pushed up, barefooted, and creaking his door open carefully didn't know why he was sneaking. If it was a bathroom trip he would've kicked the door apart. Grandpa was half deaf and blind: the old coot could sleep through a jet engine going off.

Yami hesitated at Yugi's door. Knocking seemed obtrusive and counterproductive.

When he slipped in, shut the door after him. Yugi was nestled into his side, palm on the pillow, in a little nest of quilt and sheets. Ruffled, obviously unconscious, he looked soothed. Yami felt halfway towards a traitor but couldn't really stop himself from plopping on the edge of Yugi's bed and squeezing his shoulder.

"_Ano_…" Yugi mumbled twisting into the cotton then out onto his back blinking one eyed at Yami all parted lips and shambled hair. "Yami…?"

"Sorry," he whispered.

"_Hnn_," Yugi slumped back, brushing his eyes. "_is_ _m'kay_, what's up?"

Any phrase Yami could carve up sounded barbarous, childish or foully ignorant. Instead of talking about stupid things then Yami kept up his long standing policy of just doing them first. So tugging back the blankets round Yugi he shuffled in alongside him. Yugi didn't complain, just rolled back into his side and pressed back into the wall burying himself in the cotton as Yami pulled the sheets back up and got comfortable. He reminded Yami of an exhausted mother who submitted to children running from nightmares.

Yami found his restlessness settled with Yugi's face lulling on the pillow by the cusp of his shoulder and nose twisting closer towards the smaller Yami was surprised he'd been allowed in like this. Really he was just a big annoying cat demanding cuddles for no good reason. Yugi didn't appear to mind, rather, he seemed about ready to slip back into unconsciousness.

"Yugi," he whispered, swallowing a trace of bile in his throat. "What was he like?"

Yugi frowned, eyes closed, and forcing the lids apart groggily found Yami's gaze in the semi darkness under the lush of the skylight letting the moon in. You just couldn't make this room pitch black like you could Yami's.

"I don't know, like a dad," Yugi mumbled pulling his hands under his chin, curling as his eyes fluttered back shut.

"Yugi," he pressed, "I don't even know what he looked like you've got to give me better than that."

"I don't know," the smaller insisted, refusing to open his eyes again. "He was a lot like Grandpa mainly but a little bit more serious like you."

"How?"

"I don't know," this third time was impatient, Yugi was riling against the pain rolling onto his opposing side so his back was to Yami. "I can't word it. You were just similar people."

"What did he say about me?"

"Nothing," Yugi sighed heartily, knees almost at his chest.

"I mean it," Yami huffed, "what'd he say?"

"He didn't," the smaller stressed firmly, "I didn't even know you existed till I was eight. He didn't talk about you to me. He wouldn't."

"Why'd he leave me here with Grandpa?"

"_I don't know_." Yugi moaned piteously almost wordlessly begging for mercy. "He said he'd tell me about it when I was older. He never told me. I don't know why."

"Yugi-"

"I don't know!" He snapped. "Just leave it. No one ever told me anything important. I just…"

There was a tight, bitter, moment of silence and Yami knew neither of them was anywhere near sleep.

"I'm sorry," Yami mumbled sullenly. "It just hurts. I don't get why he didn't like me."

"I know," Yugi whispered still all back to him, "I'm sorry I can't do anything."

"You like me?"

"Yeah," the tiny foreign mystery promised, "I like you."

"I used to…" Yami signed. "I used to be really jealous of you. I'm sorry."

"It's okay." Yugi dismissed. "I figured. I hoped you didn't know about me for a long time."

"I wish I could miss him like you do, with you," he clarified. "I feel bad I can't cry."

"You shouldn't have to."

"Why not?"

"He treated you like shit." Yugi mumbled. "I don't know why but he did. You shouldn't have to like him."

"He was my dad."

"Yeah," the teen didn't argue.

"You miss him?"

"A lot," Yugi confessed coolly, distantly. "I miss my life."

"Is it okay here?"

"Yeah," he promised. "You're here."

"I'm glad," Yami whispered. "I'm glad you're here."

Yugi got it somehow. In weird way Yami felt like he'd missed him before they'd ever met. Yami was glad they'd met. Glad they'd had a chance for this weird special quiet thing however mysterious. He was still guilty Yugi was so pressed under pain at the same time.

* * *

><p>Yami woke with Yugi yawning, all primal morning breath, into his bare arm. The bed was cramped. They were tangled but not really entangled more just butting up against each other and Yugi twisted under the pillow his shirt almost under his armpits as Yami tried to find the surface of consciousness. He hadn't meant to just fall asleep in Yugi's bed but things happened. Down the hallway Grandpa pattered towards the stairs, TV wafted up the stairs, and Saturday morning light beamed through the skylight to assault Yami who was used to his little cave of a bedroom rather than Yugi's loft.<p>

Old impulses told Yami about now was the time to get up and watch cartoons. That was a very different time in his internal clock than the teenage _'its noon wake up for lunch_' o'clock of recent years. The bed warmth, the cotton candy quality of his brain waves, allowed him instead then to roll onto his side and sling his arm over Yugi's side. Half-awake but still aware Yugi squirmed a little closer and mumbled something into the pillow Yami interpreted as a greeting through his yawn.

Yugi's toes stretched down against his calves and Yami felt like they'd had a sleep over.

The smaller pushed back the blankets sluggishly, sitting himself cross legged under the quilt as he yawned, open mouthed, without proper sound like a tiny cat. Yami blinked through sandy granules and contemplated moving from his pancake position but dismissed it. This was nice. Yugi looked good in boxers, nice legs, Yami rubbed his cheek into the pillow.

Yugi leant onto his arms, one palm resting on Yami's opposing side at the edge of the mattress reaching for the desk drawers. Yami stayed very still, Yugi's body arched over him as the teen rifled through the top draw and coming back with a book lay back under the sheet kicking the quilt down.

Yugi on his back came brow to brow with Yami on his side.

"Here," he mumbled groggy holding his arm out with a pile of polaroids stacked precariously between his fingers.

Yami dragged closer, looking up through his fringe so Yugi could flip through the stack of pictures. In the first one Yugi must've been six-ish and he was the only person in the whole shot Yami recognised but he could make guesses about the man whose hip mini-Yugi was hefted onto.

He rolled onto his back, saw his father for the first time, and let Yugi look to him for confirmation to switch images without explaining any of the context of the picture. Yami extended his longer arm, took the stack from Yugi gently and drawing his arm in held the pictures before their noses to drive the switch himself. Christmases, birthdays, landscapes, beaches, people in suits and togas and t-shirts who Yami didn't recognize. Yugi at six, at nine, or just a little while ago, or in some hazy image from when he was a baby…

A man who was less stocky than Grandpa Motou but broader than Yami, taller, more weathered, filled most shots from the edge. He seemed to always be leaving frame. He seemed to always have a sated, tender, smile or something boisterous and half laughing when he wasn't squinting at the lens. Little Yugi had a tendency to gaze contemptuously at the camera even under the prodding of various men and women trying to make him smile. Yami's father seemed touchy. He always sat next to someone, had his arm round someone, welcomed some lovely lanky woman leaning into him, had Yugi bouncing on his lap, or his hip, or on his back all casual saunter and dark eyes. He was darker skinned than Yami or Yugi or Solomon. Must've been something Yami's father inherited from his Grandmother but Yami had lost in the translation of his own mother.

In some shots he wasn't there at all. In some shots not even Yugi was in frame. Just people, places, things, hotel room views, church ceilings, lots of smiling Arabians, grinning Americans… people who were extended family to Yugi and whose names and identities Yami couldn't even begin to guess. He assumed they were his father's friends.

Yami finished the end of the reel, the pile, and Yugi clamoured over him to stuff the photos back away. Yami somehow knew Yugi had more but didn't bother getting them. He knew what his father looked like, Yugi had given him that much willingly, but Yami would never know what he sounded like or how he moved or how he was unguarded and happy and loving. Yami would never get a condolence, a congratulations, or a proper explanation. He swallowed.

"That help?" Yugi wondered lying back beside him, watching the twitching details of his guarded face carefully.

"A bit," Yami nodded, it did.

"It's okay," the smaller threaded his wrists between his squished thighs.

Yami really enjoyed him, had to smile, had to brush Yugi's nose with the curled edge of his index finger flippantly.

"Thanks little one."

Yugi snorted.

"Stupid nickname," he complained.

"You're tiny," Yami defended smugly.

Yugi was trying not to smile. Yami liked the twinkle in his eyes when he did that. The smaller stuck his tongue out. Growling a little, playful, Yami pushed up and rolled onto him all fingers in a flurry. Yugi squealed, writhing, giggling as, honest to god, Yami tickled him.

"S-ah-top!" Yugi pestered, kicking, high pitched, desperate and squirming.

Another laugh, another smile, and Yami flopped back to let Yugi laugh off the last breath at the ceiling. Satisfied, legs dangling themselves over the mattress Yami let himself start to rise dismissively a moment later as Yugi remained poised with his palm resting on his bare navel.

"I'ma have breakfast," Yami stated, scratching his side.

"Hmm," Yugi moaned through a stretch of his toes, "m'kay."

"Morning Grandpa!" Yami hollered down the stairs when he reached the carpeted hallway, leaving Yugi's door cast open.

"Morning!" The elder rasped booming up the stair case from his spot on the lounge. "You're up early!"

It was all a little easier when he and Yugi were talking.

* * *

><p>Yami was yawning into afternoon dishes at the back window when Grandpa called to him from the store front over Yugi in the lounge.<p>

"Yami! Visitor!"

"Coming!"

You could tell they were a female-absent household. Lots of shouting. Yami left the dishes in the sink, didn't bother draining the water, barefooted and sloppy still half in his pjs. He needed a shower pretty bad. He was a total teenager in summary. He expected to meet Jou however not Mai. He expected his shaggy, dopey, blond for afternoon video games he could drag Yugi into. Not a cousin.

"Mai?" He blinked sticking his head into the store front.

"Hey handsome!" She chortled, all arms to squeeze him into one of those perfumed extended-family hugs that were nice but oddly distanced. "Just look at you lady killer."

He felt underdressed in the second, sweaty, and wished he'd showered.

"You want to come have a coffee with me?"

"Yeah, sure," he couldn't really argue with her when she'd went out of her way to come into Domino. "Just let me get changed."

"Kay kiddo," she dismissed, turning back to amiable conversation with Grandpa.

She was a typical adult waiting on a child but Yami still couldn't comprehend how she could strike up a reasonable dialogue of any kind with Grandpa Motou. His two fractured family sides didn't tend to get on. His mother's family, however rarely they contacted him, were sweet and well-meaning mostly but not really the sort Grandpa Motou thought much of if exposed to them for any lengthy period of time. He'd gotten to stay overnight with his aunt once or twice, for brief stints, when what was left of his mother's family tried to keep contact. He'd never met his living grandmother on her side however, apparently she was a drunk in a nursing home twelve hours away and not particularly interested in any of her children (most of them disinherited).

He pranced sluggishly behind Yugi as the smaller curled himself a little tighter on the lounge and glanced towards the store. Yugi looked lost, pale, trapped.

"Help me find a shirt," Yami invited in passing, giving the smaller and excuse to escape up stairs without feeling awkward. Yugi bolted, left the TV on and was up to the landing before Yami.

"Who's…?" Yugi obviously thought he sounded rude because he stopped.

"Just a cousin," Yami shrugged, digging through the laundry hamper in the hall as Yugi seemed to contemplate hiding in his room. A cousin on Yami's mother's side, that was, no one with any relation to or any reason to like Yugi. It clearly made the smaller anxious of what to expect. "She's nice. You want me to introduce you?"

"No thanks…" the smaller mumbled, twisting his hands behind his back. _They won't like me. They'll glare_. It was practically plastered on his forehead. It was fractured family politics at its best and most basic.

Yami threw his shirt away, tossed on the cleanest smelling one from the hamper and dragged out his jeans up and over his boxers. He found his wallet and keys on his desk, shoes downstairs waiting for him like Yugi was waiting in the hallway.

"Back in a bit," he promised casually, hooking his hand behind Yugi's shoulders to settle his palm on his neck and in a weird fleeting gesture, pressing his lips to his forehead for a peck. Yugi had kissed his cheek, it was Yami's turn. He didn't like how nervous the teen seemed. "Just you and Grandpa for a while."

"Have fun," Yugi interned as Yami pulled away after drawing Yugi in. Yugi flexed on his toes in the carpet, brushed Yami's cheek back with his own lips and scampered out of sight to his bedroom to hide.

* * *

><p>Mai was ten years older than him, his aunt's eldest, and the only child that hadn't ever been taken by CPS. They had a resemblance Yami liked; the hair, the eyes, the Kujaku sharp vibe of <em>'I'm fucking crazy and I have no self-restraint<em>'. Crazy seemed to have skipped them over mostly at least but Mai had a crasser mouth than he did and never looked nervous lighting up a cigarette which showed her roots.

They'd found a ditzy little café Yami had never been to and had taken a seat at one of the outside tables along the road because Mai liked to smoke and caffeinate even if it was a little cold.

"How you going buddy?"

"Pretty good," he shrugged, adjectives and sentences weren't really his thing as this stage in the hormones. "You?"

"Fucking job, office with all these bitches," Mai sighed. "Wouldn't go back to childcare though nothing worse than the girls there."

"How's Aunty Lou?"

"Saggy," she cackled, "good though."

Aunty Lou probably still smelt like weed. Grandpa Motou had never liked that. She was a good woman though, got up every morning at three am to work at a bakery after many years working in an abettors.

"How's school going?"

"Just waiting for it to be over mainly," Yami played with his nails, the hot chocolate was flavourless.

"What are you going to do?"

"Don't know," he shrugged, "Grandpa says I have to do maths till graduation but other than that I dunno. Kind of want to quit."

"Get an apprenticeship."

"Nah," Grandpa wanted him to finish school, Yami wanted the same some days.

"How you feeling about everything?" Mai pestered finally getting to it. "That other kid move in after all?"

"Yugi," Yami nodded, "yeah he's cool."

"Not giving you any trouble?"

"Nah," he laughed, "kid's a mouse. Tiny."

"That's good," Mai took a supportive puff of her cigarette, "ya know Yami if you ever want to move in with me you can. Alright?"

"Nah I'm fine," he insisted automatically.

"Seriously," she pressed, "I'm twenty-six now. I can be a legal guardian."

"I know," he nodded, she'd offered when she turned eighteen as well. Aunty Lou always felt bad for not taking him in or fighting his father for custody.

"If you ever want to, if you get uncomfortable, you can just come crash with me."

"I know," Yami repeated lazily, "I'm good, thanks."

He liked Mai but he couldn't imagine not living with Grandpa. The old man had raised him since he was almost a baby. He almost didn't remember his mother. She was fragmented at the back of his memory as a voice and sensation he vaguely recalled. Mai was lovely, familiar, but she was still somehow odd ended and foreign. There was a broken kind of dirtiness to his mother's family which wasn't meant to be derogatory in any way just to say that they were strange and taxing. He felt out of place with them in the long run. After a few days with no other home to go to he would've felt like a fake in Mai's home. He suspected it would be more like living in a frat house than a home. Mai wasn't a parent, so she shouldn't have been, she wasn't going to push him to eat greens or get good grades and he needed that over an eternal vacation that led nowhere.

"What you doing in town?" He changed tangents.

"Just visiting your mum," she smiled, "you want to come with? I thought I'd drop by and check on you."

"Yeah," he murmured. He hadn't been to her grave in a while.

Poor thing his mother. She was beautiful, if the photos were anything to go by, and wild. Yami wasn't quite sure how she and his father had ever had a fling of any description or how they'd met and no one else seemed to know anymore either. The only two people who'd been there were dead. Apparently they'd both been travelling Europe, camping in hostels and stuff, had done most of the European leg together and apparently while sleeping together. They'd gone separate ways sharply, unhappily under some term, and then Yami's mother had tried to raise him by her lonesome.

She hadn't been in the best position for a child, so she pestered for paternity proof and child support, but she did love him everyone swore to. He didn't blame her for killing herself, not at all, not in any selfish kiddy way certainly. It wasn't exactly her fault. Stress and a clinical diagnosis of manic-depressive schizophrenic with a new baby would've pushed Yami over the edge and he didn't have voices in his head.

He vaguely remembered her arguing with her voices, laughing with them, but he was so tiny he wasn't sure. Beautiful woman, sweet to him, loved him but somewhere deep down Yami worried about whether or not being put with Grandpa Motou was a blessing in disguise. Everything about her and her blood was so messy.

* * *

><p>Mai dropped him home, he said a line or two about her at dinner, Grandpa sung her praises for a moment and then they moved on. Yugi started talking a little bit after that and before dessert. Yami knew in the back of his mind Yugi must've felt awkward, unwanted, guilty…he didn't resent it in the other but didn't feel prompted to help in a massive way. A little discomfort wasn't going to hurt Yugi in the long run. They were just two things that shouldn't cross wires: Yugi and Yami's mother's family. In much the same way Yami supposed Yugi didn't like confusing good memories of their father with ideas of Yami's neglect. It was kind of compromise he was sensing out between them.<p>

The phone rang halfway through dessert.

Grandpa got it, Professor Hawkins finally got to speak with him after apparently attempting to catch him all day with some exciting tid bit of gossip and by the time the dishes were done after dinner Grandpa miraculously had another trip planned.

Yami didn't mind typically but it felt like he was being yanked, almost painfully, between two extremes. When Grandpa was home he and Yugi seemed 'off', silent, dead and playing at thoughtlessly normal but when he was gone something turned 'on' and came bursting to life. Whatever it was electrifying the silence between them needed quiet, careful, exploration that took time and atmosphere. The wall between them, the war of whatever, took the right approach Yami needed time and zero distractions to make that approach.

If Grandpa was going and they knew he was then suddenly Yami caught himself making little stares reciprocated by Yugi. They understood between each other phase two, or round two, or something would happen while the old man was gone but neither seemed to try and word the specifics. It was as if it was something that only existed in Yami's mind and if he spoke about it whatever the electricity was it would cease to exist. He didn't want that. Mapping out this current had fostered something happy between he and Yugi he quite liked and he didn't want to damage being as fragile as their mutual affections for each other were.

In typical fashion however nothing happened, nothing at all, till a week or so later when Grandpa left precariously close to the end of the school term. What would happen if he was caught away for Christmas and they were left without even school to distract them Yami wondered?

Something about the anticipation was exciting.

* * *

><p>Grandpa left Monday morning, apologising merrily all the while, and the whole rushing abruptness of his coming and going seemed to startle Yugi ragged. Worse Yugi didn't seem to like that wherever Grandpa was adventuring he couldn't follow. Yami judged that entirely however on the envious looks Yugi shot the winding off taxi as Yami waited on the curb to walk them to school in the opposite direction.<p>

At the school gate Yami had another moment where he wanted to ask Yugi, invite him really, to have lunch with Jou, Honda and Yami but couldn't find the strength to weasel it into conversation. Normally Yami was blunter but with Yugi, with girls, and with authority he found this frustrating tough-guy shyness that waited for opportunity rather than just saying what it was he wanted to say at the time he wanted to say it.

Cue the day.

Jou sulked about geography homework, Honda fussed deeply over Miho and Anzu had grown a little so her skirt was shorter than ever which Yami quite appreciated. Frankly he didn't understand Honda's fussing, not really. He got that girls were delicious but impossible to touch or talk to or approach but he couldn't understand the images Honda seemed to want. Yami wanted complexity. Honda wanted a girl he could feel mild about. Just kiss, be simple, make out and be done with it something casual and boring.

English lagged and made the wait to lunch seem longer as Yami gazed out the window. Math last period sounded unbearable so Jou, Honda and Yami skipped it by escaping onto the school roof instead. They sat near the fence, away from the sports field side of the roof, and played Duel Monsters. Yami used to gamble over lunch stuffs but he didn't bother anymore. Jou could hardly afford to lose the food Yami tended to win after all and none of them liked drawing attention to it.

No one at Domino seemed to have a good life actually when Yami thought about it. They just didn't think about it often. Anzu's parents couldn't afford to send her to any kind of university let alone for dance in America so she took a job she wasn't supposed to. Jou's father was disastrous and the fact Jou attended school at all was miraculous but the sad reality was Domino High was the nearest to his bad neighbourhood and the one anyone could afford. Likewise Honda, Yami and Miho didn't have much or many prospects to boast. Ryou seemed to have no parents from what Yami understood and Yugi well…Yugi was a little different.

Really when he thought about all the punks he shared the halls with, like Ushio and co, and every other angry psycho, like the fortune teller dumbass and that nasty girl who kept winning the school beauty pageant or even the foul teachers… Well, when Yami thought about it then it was sort of apparent they were the school scrapping the bottom of the social barrel. Which was kind of depressing.

It definitely wasn't the thought he wanted to end his day on. Especially not when, as he fetched his shoes, it looked like it was going to rain. Needless to say by the end of the day Yami was a little sullen with his lot in life. Luckily he was eager to escape home with Yugi and give them some time to each other in peace. They could talk properly tonight.

Yami waited by the gate for Yugi, waiting for it to start pouring, scrapping his feet on the sidewalk.

And he waited…

Ryou passed by himself.

Yami asked and the underclassmen shrugged that Yugi had left already he thought. Yami frowned and, for a while, they waited together.

Eventually Ryou had to leave, made uneasy by the increasing darkness of the sky and Yami let him go.

Yami convinced himself that Yugi must've headed home before him, without him, and started walking.

When he got home Yami called out and Yugi didn't answer. He paused in the backdoor, uneasy and supposed that if Yugi was back at school than by now he should've assumed Yami had left anyway. If it was just a matter of their timing being out of sync should Yami wait there or back track looking or him? What would Jou do if it was his precious little sister?

Yami wouldn't dare imagine calling Grandpa not with the time difference and Jou didn't have a mobile because it wasn't an absolute necessity (it should've been considering how often the blonde got himself into trouble).

After a moment of dithering Yami left his bag on the kitchen table as a kind of flag '_I have been here'_ and re-locked the backdoor to backtrack towards the school with his phone, wallet and keys.

Bad things happened to Yami sometimes and other times he did stupid things. He got himself in trouble, he ended up out late and couldn't explain himself. He got detention and in the middle of gang fights or showing up conmen at wherever. He seemed to just wander into mayhem but Yugi wasn't supposed to do that.

When it was someone else like Jou or Yugi he really didn't like the knotted anxiety in his stomach.

It started raining a block away from home, rushing down his face and over his ears between thunder claps. Fuck.

Yami contemplated turning back but didn't dare. He tried texting Yugi again.

"Pick up," he grumbled, thumbing the keypad with one hand as he tried to shield the device from the rain with the other, stalling on the side walk.

He'd just gotten his phone back in his pocket when it buzzed.

_[YUGI: Home soon, got held up, sorry] _

Yami grunted. Throwing his head back, drenched, and turned back round to yank himself back towards the game shop _again_.

He sat himself at the kitchen table, soaked, throwing off his jacket to wait by the backdoor for Yugi. Part of him was frustrated the rest was still tense watching the clock tick by. Five past four…six past…seven…

The door rattled.

Yami was up instantaneously, his stomach flipped, he felt weirdly dreadful and wrenched the door open. Yugi startled, key out in his hand, utterly ravished by the rain, and Yami slackened. He was appeased by the sight of him, Yugi was home, but then his next impulse was to break his temper and shout.

Yugi stared at him.

Yami's lips fell open.

His stomach did another summersault.

Years of getting into mischief, of looking after Jou, sent him into an automatic maintenance check: black bruised cheek, scraped opposing temple, dirt on the uniform, visible scrapping on the knuckles…

It clicked.

Someone had beaten Yugi up. He just knew it from instinct and years of tribulation.

No, that was _not_ on.

"Who the_ fuck_ hit you?" Tumbled brazenly out of Yami's mouth as he stupidly filled the entryway before Yugi could seem to find words.

"I'm fine," Yugi placated softly, he looked a little shell shocked by the pervading aggression _rolling_ off Yami.

"No," Yami snapped, "who hit you?"

Yugi fumbled, staring at him, unsure what to say with his key still in hand, dripping wet onto the tiles of the kitchen he was on the cusp of. Yami felt a little distanced from the intensity of the anger but he knew, even if he was numbed, that he was positively _livid_. He was already cycling through a mental list of suspects from school.

"I'm okay," Yugi repeated, "really. I caught some guys picking on someone from my class behind the gym. I told them off so they messed with me instead. They're just big babies. I'm fine."

For a soft kid, a boy who'd never attended a proper high school and had lived up until now a relatively charmed life Yugi had taken to this Dickens style turn of fortune oddly easily. He seemed adjusted and even with the rain making him pallid and clammy Yugi didn't look like he'd shed a tear all day. It was wrong. Yami's insides just twisted in a painful direction at the mere idea of someone putting their hands, in anger, on Yugi. All those funny protective impulses just exploded and he wanted Yugi to be more affronted.

"I'm going to kill them." Yami promised. "I swear to god-"

"_Shh_," Yugi cut him off in hissing, surging in to cup Yami's cheeks and hush. "I'm fine."

Yugi's thumb ran over his cheek bone, eyes misting, and the teen seemed more genuinely distressed by Yami's raging than the wounds. Not fair.

They breathed.

A pause entered where they should've pulled away or where they needed to move. A prompt emerged. Nothing changed. Electricity sizzled, thunder tumbled overhead, and Yami was suddenly very aware of the fact the house behind him was empty and that Yugi's hands were soft and steady on his face. Darker eyes met a lighter set. Yugi's shoulders dropped but his hands didn't.

"You're wet too," Yugi sighed deftly.

"Went looking for you," he explained.

Yugi's lips twitched a little in response but Yami couldn't bring himself to move. He was like a trapped beast lulled into submission.

"We should get dry."

"Aren't you cold?" Yami coined.

"Freezing," Yugi nodded quietly, a breath. "Shower…?"

_Together_

Yami's tomach, his pelvis, contorted tensely. Something unsaid leapt right up to the front of his mind but he didn't dare dwell on it because that might break the atmospheric pressure, the swell, the spell…

Yami nodded.

Yugi slipped in. Yami locked the door. Yugi shrugged off his bag, Yami caught it in hand and plopped it on the floor by the cabinet. Thunder growled, rain rattled the window, the light was still apparent and natural but grey. Yami toed off his shoes, Yugi followed, they paused. Deceptively casual was the ruse on the surface but Yami felt tension beneath it like steel cabling.

Yugi looked to him, Yami nearly got lost in himself but courage or steel or something prompted him to curl his fingers round Yugi's and lead up the stairs.

No Grandpa.

Yami took a breath, didn't know if he wanted to flip the lights on but Yugi beat him to it. He had an impulse then that he preferred the dark. He switched them off again. In the grey, misted, and fading light filtering through the cobbled windows Yugi looked to him for an explanation and all Yami could manage was to step closer. There was an element of misrepresentation to the low light. Yami felt simultaneously more like _himself_ and less 'Yami Motou'.

Yugi must've been a mind reader because he watched, he stilled and he slacked consensually to the lighting.

Yami swallowed, chest tight, and prepared himself to will his fingers up.

The smaller took mercy, startling him by raising both hands to find the hem of Yami's shirt and tug it, bunching it up. It was sticking to him, drenched through and it peeled off leaving tingles as Yami raised his arms took it out of Yugi's hands the last little way when the smaller couldn't reach. His bare skin prickled when the shirt slopped against the bathmat but he was too distracted by the courage that was grasping Yugi's hemline.

He was bruised under the cotton and Yami was murderous but all in the eyes because his tongue was too heavy to speak. Yugi cringed remedying the situation by creeping a little closer to flute his fingers across Yami's jaw and _down_.

Yami found the quality of Yugi's curved shoulders very pleasing. All pristine, little and white as he looked down. When the other's hands slipped into the decreasing space between them to fondle his belt Yami felt his navel tuck in expectantly on reflex. He remembered, perhaps inappropriately that he'd never been kissed. He'd never asked a girl out.

This was all inappropriate.

Yami quashed it unable to break the dizzying, dazzlingly, eye contact between them that lulled all his brain cells and invigorated his nerves. Was this weird or sudden…? They weren't doing anything though, he reminded himself, they weren't doing anything yet.

_Yet._

Yugi's petite fingers trailed down his zipper and back to hook in his waist line. They curled, then threaded again to clutch the edge of his pants _and_ his underwear. Yugi pushed down languidly, cautious even, and his palms dragged over Yami's bare hips in such a way as he passed the junction that the bigger boy forgot how to exhale.

The fabric sunk with water weight to fall the rest of the way down his calves. They'd just needed a little incentive. Yugi's hands lingered about his navel, not quite touching, not quite sure what to do but his eyes wavered oh so subtly. Yami felt awake, intensely and acutely aware of everything including embarrassingly…

He diverted attention from himself instead by doing what he really wanted. His fingers shook though as they fondled haphazardly down Yugi's zipper. How did he make this all look so graceful? Yami was envious of those fingers. He palmed Yugi's bare hips, knew he was supposed to push down but squeezed the shape of the bone under his fingers. Soft. Yugi's teeth dragged over his bottom lip, brows cresting nearly and Yami ran his palms down pushing the stubbornly clinging accessories off. Yugi's lips parted, he took a sharp tiny breath in but didn't sigh out as his pants slumped onto the tiles round his feet. Yami's hands lingered all the way back up the outside of Yugi's thighs…

His head tripped just at the word; _thighs_…_bare_ thighs…

Both of them had to exhale shakily.

Part of Yami riled, a little back voice, worried Grandpa would miraculously manifest in the next three seconds. It chanted on repeat _weird_ and _shouldn't_ but…

Yugi's fingers circled his bellybutton.

It became very hard to pay any attention to that little voice.

The boy's tripping fingers stalled in gentle, nail scrapping, circles. He was delicate over his navel just like Yami's hand held position on Yugi's hips. Yugi maybe, Yami hoped or wished or thought or tasted, wanted to move down just a little more to the curls…Deep breath.

Yugi peeled away with supreme restraint, obvious effort, and disentangling them reached into the shower to twist the taps. Yami heard the rush of water clattering thickly, heard the thunder pound overhead but was more distracted by the newly exposed curves of…

The little one held his palm under the spray, fingers curling and easing till, temperature apparently acceptable, with a coy peak to Yami he slipped in under the jet. It took three strenuous heartbeats for Yami to follow into the glass case.

It was tiny confines but a perfect excuse in the same stroke. Yugi closed his eyes, head back, chin up and Yami just wanted to look at him. His hair got heavy under the spray and hung slick, curling over his cheek, colours fuzzing and diffusing in the mused tangles. Pretty was the wrong word, felt too girly but he just _was_. Their eyes met a fraction later, just a hair, and Yami felt the tug of impulse and unspoken permission. So he wrapped his arms snug round Yugi's middle, the tender warm expanse of Yugi's slick back connecting with his torso and…Yami hid his nose behind the curve of the smaller's ear as Yugi's fingers curled over his forearm. He was so _hard_. Impossibly hard as Yugi leant back into him and let Yami's cock press between the curves of his ass. Yugi allowed it, totally permissive, leant back fully into his hold and his touch and his press…

Yami held him, they took steady breaths and pretended everything was normal. That was what it was though. The infectious unspoken electricity: _attraction_.

They were in a grey space ethically as far as Yami's hormones were concerned and Yugi let him so…it was alright he reasoned…Yugi was…Yami came closer, cheek to cheek over Yugi's shoulder as the littler tilted back, nose brushing the plush of his jaw, and knew Yugi was just as hot. Raw, bitter, funny and tense they seemed afraid to move. How much could he, they, get away with in the name of proper and decent however fake the intentions?

Yami wanted to test the limits. Desperately. The truth of that was in the fact he'd never experienced…he didn't think, wasn't sure, if he'd ever been this aroused. Not over anyone at school anyway. Maybe with himself in the middle of the night but even then…he was_ so hard_. He just needed something, a little scratch, some relief to the pressure…

Yugi's hand rested on his forearm. The younger paused, stroked his wrist and just a little curved to push back into him, all hips. Yami nearly bit his tongue. God_ yes_. His hips jolted forward of their own accord to grind into Yugi. Well not _into_ (not yet…?).

"_Hn_…" Yugi disguised it as a motion of just air and vapours but Yami knew it was moan behind the smaller boy's teeth in the cradle of his throat and he ate it up.

Wrong, messy, kind of…

Yami really didn't care.

Too much pressure between his thighs, too much desire to be between Yugi's thighs in a way that until about however long ago had been alien and gross and something '_fags'_ did. Yami was a teenage boy. He had to be a man or at least posture at it. He still wanted that but the whole cultural or teenage tough guy thing of what was normal and sexy and shit now not so much. This wasn't easy, it wasn't simple, like getting a girlfriend but it was _hot_. Yami didn't want Anzu all slick, wet and spread up the skirt he…As bizarre as it was he wanted Yugi. He really, _really_, wanted Yugi.

It was kind of off putting, back flipping, to realize it or at least internalize it with proper dialogue.

Yugi pressed his hips back, grinding gently, into Yami's still aching cock and the elder buried his face in the nook of Yugi's shoulder to grind slow and thick back.

"Nh…" Yugi pursed his lips.

Yami knew if he un-sewed his teeth his guttural whispers would scale up irrevocably. There was this sense it would break the enchantment that let them do this.

He moved them, in a really stupid way he didn't quite notice the details of but all of a sudden Yugi's cheek was against the tiled wall, his palms flat and fingers spread and hands on his hips Yami ground the other against the stone. Yugi's fingers spider spread on the wall for purchase nearly animalistic. It was _sexy_.

It was all tease, Yami dripping pre-cum along his channel relieved but not quite finding enough pressure to release. It was good, incredible, but Yami wanted something else, he wanted more, and he couldn't and if he couldn't his body didn't seem to want to settle to coming for less than totally Yugi. What was painful for him though must've been torturous for tightly, tensely, sighing Yugi folded under him. Yugi panted, open lipped, into the tiles with his eyes pressed shut. Hips forced painfully into unresponsive wall but arching his spine back jutting into Yami there wasn't any more relief just imaginative promise of what _could_ happen…

Not good enough.

Yami could dream though. He did. Yugi clearly did. Neither of them dared actually voice it though. Rather Yami just slid the dripping tip over what he knew, _felt_, to be Yugi's entrance and the pair of the tortured each other with that much. There wasn't anything else between them but niggling doubt, hesitation, rules…

_Wantwantwant_

Versus

_Wrongweirdlittleshouldn't_

Yami was _so_ close.

Yugi wanted it though, Yami's inner animal just knew, he made little noises that shot a hard line injection of arousal right down Yami's pelvis. Just screamed: _take now please? Yes_...

Yugi shivered, trembling in his arms, and Yami could've peeled at the seams.

The water ran colder down his spine and Yami shivered. He bore the brunt of it shielding them from the spray. Yugi took a shaky breath. Do or die.

The water turned, in a matter of hesitant, unsure, breaths as they rocked into each other, bitterly frigid. Yami felt his desire slipping, control fusing back into place with reality stirring up. Yugi seemed to transform from lush putty to something laced increasingly tighter, increasingly normal, under his stagnant fingers.

Yami knew it was too cold. He stopped. Slowly, shaking, cock burning heavy between his legs he turned off the water and Yugi rested trembling against the wall in silence.

It was over for now.

The fever gone but the hearts still racing they both knew they were each very much aroused but were too cowardly to do anything about it.

The silence they towelled themselves in was bitterly rigid and Yami didn't know quite what to do except let them pad down the hallways to their separate rooms and get dressed.

* * *

><p>They didn't talk about it all night. They barely talked. Yugi blushed scarlet when Yami's hand brushed his in the lounge over dinner but didn't retract. They made contact, lingered longer than they should've and pulled back without crossing glances.<p>

Yugi made his heart thump.

"I still want to know who hit you," Yami whispered leaning into his knees on the couch as Yugi sequestered himself in a tightly knit ball in the corner. He didn't think either of them was exactly ashamed.

"Just some jerks," Yugi shrugged, "I don't know their names."

"Point them out to me."

"I don't want to." He whispered stubbornly. "I don't want you getting involved in a fight. I can handle it…"

"People don't get to beat you up," Yami muttered, "you're my little brother."

His mouth froze over uncomfortably.

"I am…?" Yugi considered, presented with the notion.

"I…" Yami knew what he was inferring. "I don't know…not technically…you're adopted and…"

Genetically they were total, one hundred percent, strangers. Historically speaking they'd been raised on opposite sides of the world. Just in the schemer of the house and Domino because Grandpa had custody the family tree de-facto listed them as 'brothers'. They weren't really. Not half or step even.

It still felt weird though.

The only substituting phase that came to Yami's mind was that old gangster _'that's my girl_' trope. Typical really: girl, boy in this case, from the good side of the tracks and Yami in all his glory. Yet if he brought up words like _'crush'_ or '_dating'_ he got so incredibly nervous. Yugi was so amazingly hard to approach in those terms and yet Yami so desperately wanted him.

Yugi didn't comment.

* * *

><p>It rained most of the week. It was almost impossible to get out of their home room to squeeze Jou in somewhere private. Eventually, chin on his arms, watching the glass of the windows from the back row Yami gave up.<p>

"You going to eat that?"

"Nah," Yami grunted.

Jou always did love free food.

"Hey Jou," he breathed lazily, "would you think I was weird if I had a crush on another guy?"

"Huh?" The blonde perked. It was as if he'd never seen Yami before. He considered it. "Nah, I guess not, not really." He shrugged. "Up to you buddy. I mean… Beggars can't be choosers eh? Where'd I be without you?"

"Dying in a gutter," Yami smirked gently.

"Pretty right," Jou agreed, grinning. "Who ya like?"

"No one," he dismissed, "it's stupid."

"Aw come on," the blonde groaned, "don't give me that shit now."

"I'm just starting to think I think guys are hot too," he lied. "Except for you," Yami added carefully. "You're a fucking mess."

Jou cackled.

* * *

><p>It was admittedly kind of wrong how much Yugi turned him on but without Grandpa there, nagged and teased by opportunity, Yami had plenty of occasion to contemplate. Was it okay? Yes. Would Yami's father have liked it? No. Did Yami care? No. Was Yugi sweet? Yes. Yugi made him good. Yugi brought out the best in him like drawing poison from a wound he made Yami want to achieve.<p>

Friday afternoon could either ruin the whole weekend or open Pandora's box Yami decided but when he spotted Yugi in the arm chair in the lounge with a manga he gave up. He'd stop though, couldn't bear to let Yugi hate him but he was struggling for relief, air, pressure.

Yugi was aware of him in the room but he didn't really look up from the pages until Yami was starting to kneel by the edge of the armchair. Yugi blinked but didn't bolt, sitting across the seat, and Yami folded his arms across it to lean into the purchase. He knew what he wanted to do but he lost a fragment of courage and buried his face lazily.

The plush moaned as Yugi moved. He set the comic down, legs snaking down to one side of Yami so he was sitting almost properly and leaning into one arm the smaller glanced down over him.

"Yami…?"

He sighed and piteously unsure let Yugi's fingers drag over the back of his neck. He was so sweet. As they skirted the edge Yami's stomach tightened in coils and he found a bubbling intensity. It felt ridiculous to compare Yugi to a girl but that was his only point of comparison. He hadn't spent any extended period of time thinking about guys in his life. The point was Yugi was little, delicate to Yami even if he wasn't practically, in this way that made Yami want to crush him into his chest and cage all that softness. Yami had inane, unfounded, fears of bruising girls that transposed onto Yugi.

He was stalling.

Yugi's thumb ran up and down the bump along his neck at the joint of his spine to his scalp. Yami raised his head, Yugi watched and they met in the middle. He swallowed, hands gentle as his palm skirted Yugi's waist and straightening his legs he stood tall on his knees. Yugi remained nearly hunched, letting them come nose to nose, and Yami paused as they regarded each other. There was crystal clear recognition of his intentions reflected back in Yugi's eyes as the smaller's hand rested still on his shoulder.

Yami gathered all the steel, dipped, and brushed his lips, feather light, over Yugi's. They came apart, eyes met, and in the silence Yami didn't note any kind of complaint. So he tried once more, slower, pressing his lips into the foreign set with a little more time to linger that made his lids roll shut automatically. At first it seemed docile, empty, and then Yugi's fingers curled in his shirt.

Lips moved, Yugi responded, brushing with consistency, firmness, moisture. Yugi didn't pull back, Yami didn't stop. Hesitant but smooth Yugi's arms folded round his shoulders resting his weight into Yami's spine and suddenly invited Yami reached to curl his arms round Yugi waist to draw him in closer. They moulded into each other, blind as bats, Yugi's fingers tripping over his face, thumb massaging the plush of his cheek, Yami's arms too tight round him.

Yami flexed, exhaled through his nose, and they continued to mingle. Kiss, break lips, brush, kiss soft, then firm, but always slow.

They came nose to nose. Yugi panted. Yami wouldn't stop squeezing him close. That was perfect. Yami needed to do that more. Yugi rested into him.

Their eyes met. There was a second of sedentary pause before Yugi's fingers flexed into his hair and kissed him. Yami made a guttural purr, squeezed him too tight, and the smaller teen stuttered his whole weight into Yami. Their motion didn't become rougher or frenzied it maintained the same lingering, firm, but steady pace. Savouring, licking along lips, slowing retracing details just compounded over and over…

Yami started to stand and Yugi reached up into him to hold the contact as long as possible till it wasn't possible. Yami planted his knee on the armchair, the smaller turned in his arms and shuffling they settled with both of them squeezed onto the seat Yugi mostly in his lap. Words were failures, they didn't work, they broke this up so instead Yami focused on Yugi's hands on his face and his lips skirting cautiously over the other's. Yami was clumsy, kissing his cheeks, or at least he felt so but the smaller wrapped up round him threading his fingers through his hair and folding them into each other.

"I feel freaky," Yugi mumbled against his jaw.

"Why?"

"Cause I really want to kiss you." He admitted. "You…"

"What?"

"I don't know," he shrugged, "you're hot." Yugi snorted, collected himself and tried again. "You're sweet, you make me feel special. I just want to…it's like a crush, like dating but…"

"Grandpa's not here." They were both thinking it. "We can just pretend…"

A pause.

"That we're not…?" Yugi murmured. "That we're just living together. Just…dating…?"

"Yeah."

"Heh," he hesitated, "maybe…"

Yami couldn't stand it. So he found his arms and stood, extending his palm sloppily to Yugi. He must've said something convincing at least because while the smaller hesitated he did take Yami's hand and allowed himself to be hefted up and led.

* * *

><p>Yami led this time, all the way up the stairs, and Yugi didn't stall once in step behind him. He wasn't…he didn't have a plan, he just had hormones which was a big difference but he did manage to open his bedroom door without stuttering. It was like sneaking a girl home who Yami had no idea what to do with but whom he still wanted. Clumsy and ineloquent as he was Yami was all wrapped up in this. So he sorta dimmed the mental lights a little to simmer on low and decided he'd try his luck.<p>

He brought Yugi in with a swerve of the hand and the whole room just looked messy. Game consoles, cords, cards, jeans, boy stuff and debris just floating with them in the middle of it alone. There was this impossibility about trying to look grand, Yami knew that, so he just kept fumbling. He put it on repeat in his head, not that it needed any help, just: Yugi. Yugi. Yugi...

Yugi who was waiting before him, watching him, as he got his balls together and swallowed…

There wasn't much point just staring. Across the seconds Yami didn't know if it made things tenser or stranger and he was afraid to ruin everything. He hobbled closer, hand pressing flat against Yugi's belly to push him backward. They stayed eye to eye for a fumbling step or two until, detaching, Yugi devoted his focus to seating himself upon Yami's bed. His weight followed, tugging at Yugi's elbows to prompt him onto his back sprawled under him.

For a silent moment Yami straddled him, hunching down as Yugi's hands rose up to his face. They kissed with dry lips pressing steadily as they tried to get their grove. Shifting under him with a grunt, Yugi pulled away briefly and parting his legs nudged Yami's to invite him in-between for what seemed a les awkward position. Trying not to be embarrassed under all his bravado with his burning thighs and his throbbing cock Yami made the transition quietly.

He eased into the place between Yugi's thighs, their hips slipping into a knot of aligned curves, his knees parting the other's a little wider to accommodate him and as he lowered himself down onto his elbows and Yugi's arms locked about his neck. With a sigh everything seemed to fit together more naturally and with it Yami relaxed by fractions. Yugi took in his next breath sharply, hips arching up and unable to exhale Yami bit the smaller's lips.

It was kind of like he pictured it this way. Not—Not entirely though, his fantasies were always raunchier and usually supplied by bad pornos but in the moment with a real body, with real present warmth straining under him, little things seemed sexier. His hands pawed roughly at the indents of Yugi's waist. It felt like he could throw him over his shoulder and he liked that.

His tongue wasn't fabulous at conversation but it felt good when Yugi sucked on it and he made this hitchhiking sound when Yami dabbed it behind his ear. People made noises like this, he got that, but not for _him_. No girl had ever been wetting her panties to get under him. It should've made him feel big and macho but it mostly just made him feel special.

"Sit back," Yugi whispered, tearing his lips away a touch breathlessly. His hands pushing at Yami's shoulders.

He stumbled backward, sitting between Yugi's thighs, and as the littler one rose he directed Yami to lean back against the wall the bed was pushed into. Yugi shuffled, not quite upright, and took Yami's belt in his little hands. Pale and nimble they unbuckled him and, exhaling thickly, Yami wasn't quite sure what was coming next. He had a theory but he didn't want to get his hopes up till Yugi bent over him and pulled his dick out of his underwear to kiss.

He jolted so hard he worried he'd hurt the other yet nothing seemed to happen to rock Yugi from his position bent over Yami's lap. Yugi just grasped Yami's cock in his hands, running his thumbs over the achingly tense skin, and as he kissed down the head Yami remembered how to breathe long enough to moan.

_"Fuck_…" He spat.

Yugi kissed lingeringly over the slit, tongue tempted to taste the pre-cum bubbling there in docile little licks that sent bolts of electricity up Yami's spine. He struggled to exhale, hiccupping, and spreading his lips Yugi took the head into his mouth.

Yami's nails dug into the bedspread, panting, as Yugi's mouth slid up and down his cock with the other resting on his legs. Yugi's weight and the awkwardness of the position was all that kept him from bucking. All he could do was strain and hiss as Yugi's tongue stroked the veins pulsing inside his mouth. Yami was sure that, for a second, he felt himself get harder under the suckling. Maybe it was just an illusion brought on by the tightness of Yugi's mouth but he didn't at all care.

Yami panted, knees moving a little further apart to make room for Yugi. Yugi who was sucking his cock. Yami couldn't quite get over that. He'd had a lot of fantasies but no one had ever gotten down to lather him and suck at him the way Yugi was now. Now one had ever seemed desperate enough to do so but Yugi was, Yugi was focused and intent and….

Yami's hand ran through his hair, twisting and tightening, "oh fuck," he whined, "just like that…yeah, fuck, fuck, fuck…"

It didn't take long for Yami to cum. Yugi drew back, just the head in his mouth, and it was so perfectly like all of Yami's jacking fodder that he couldn't contain his blistering heat anymore. He burst, moaning and swearing, the hand in Yugi's hair holding him down even as the other coughed and spluttered on Yami's juices.

"_Fuck_," it seemed to be the only word Yami knew anymore. "Fuck," he tried to find himself in the tide of the afterglow, releasing Yugi from his grasp. Yugi sat back, coughing with his hand over his mouth and, apologizing, Yami tried to pull him into a hug. "I'm sorry," he whispered, terrified he'd done something wrong. "I didn't mean to do that, you okay? Sorry, sorry…."

Yugi flattened against him, nestling into his side, "it's okay," he answered a little hoarsely. "I just couldn't breathe for a second there. I'm okay."

"I'm sorry," he repeated stupidly. "You just had your lips round me and it… you looked so fucking good. I'm sorry, you… Can I do that to you? Yeah?"

Yugi coloured against him, obviously taken aback, but consented with a sheepish little nod. Yami kind of liked the hesitation in this, just for a second, because it was harmless and cute and…

He put Yugi's legs over his shoulders, drawing him close by his hips, and held him down as he kissed up his naked thighs. His thumbs worked into the indents of his hipbones, keeping his limber little body still, and nibbling Yami found himself leaving a trail of dark red hickeys up the skin closer and closer to the groin.

Yugi hissed tightly under him, nails sharp as razors, and bit his lip hard. Yami liked watching him tense, helpless to move, unwilling to move, but desperate to do something about all the heat bubbling up between his legs. Yami liked that, liked the control of it all. He felt big n' strong n' shit as he finally took Yugi into his mouth and did something which had, a few short months ago, been unthinkable for his macho self.

Yugi came hiccupping. He gave a procession of little gasps, convulsing, and Yami held him so tight he left miniature bruises on the skin. It was cool though, like marking his turf. Yugi sounded so good as he came, moaning and moaning, making breathless sounds that shuddered, bouncing, out of him.

* * *

><p>They fell asleep in Yami's bed. Yami kept his arm tight round Yugi's waist and Yugi's thighs quaked as he came down from the high Yami, smug Yami, had induced in him. For the first time in…well, <em>ever<em>, Yami felt powerful.

On Saturday it was hard to keep his hands off Yugi. He wasn't sure how to word it but in knowing he was allowed to touch the other he had a hard time convincing himself not to. If that made any sense? It didn't to him. All he knew was his hands itched for Yugi's body. He wanted to grab him, trap him, and smother him with a slowly burning, steadily increasing, intensity.

On Saturday morning he caught Yugi in the hallway. They were passing in different directions, Yami wanted to play some Halo, or something totally irrelevant, but as Yugi crossed his path he seemed to get a whiff of him and then, next thing he knew, he was pushing the smaller teen into the nearest wall. Any hard surface would've done.

He bit down Yugi's neck, arms tighter than trash compactors round the smaller's waist, and moaning under him Yugi thrust his hips out to brush into Yami's burning and bony pair. Yugi exhaled thick and loud into his ear and Yami felt how hard their cocks were as they pulsed almost touching through their pants. He found Yugi's ear, nibbled it, rolled his hips to feel like he was fucking or very almost fucking.

Yami wanted to crush the other into him, break him up into little pieces and absorb him, but it was so hard to—Yami swore and hooking his hands under Yugi's thighs bounced him up the wall. He was holding him up then, Yugi's thighs wrapping round his waist, Yugi's arms throwing themselves eagerly round his shoulders.

"Yami…" he crooned, "Hnnn…" It was a pretty little sound, all air and a dreamy sigh.

Yami couldn've eaten him up.

His hands groped at Yugi's backside but then one hot hand was squirming between them and into the other's pants. He hissed, dragging out his exhale, and tightened his hand to stroke at Yugi's already hard arousal.

"_Nrrgh_-!" Whatever noise Yugi tried to make it got stuck in his throat and gobbled up.

Yami squeezed, stroking and stroking…He wanted something, some satisfaction, but he wasn't sure how to get it. His hand, cramped as it was, squirmed lower and—Yeah, there. He found Yugi's puckered entrance and, pressing at it, rubbed his fingertips over the ring of skin.

"Ahh…" Yugi sounded a little unsure, a little tense, but there was still willingness there even if it was shy under the sudden intensity. "Yam—Wait, wait," he whispered, "put me down—_Aaah!_"

Yami's fingertip pushed in, he couldn't quite help himself, it felt so damn satisfying to intrude within the other and—

"Yami," Yugi whined, "stop. Down, put me down." He wasn't angry, obviously, but he was squirming and panting trying to escape the intrusion that burned at his insides. It was a gruff boy's touch.

Grumbling Yami withdrew and helped Yugi down onto his feet. He stayed trapped between Yami and the wall, looking up into the other's curious face and Yami just wanted to be back inside him. He wanted to ram his cock inside him…

"Lube," Yugi whispered, cutting straight to the point. "It hurts, ya know? It just…" He took an unsteady breath. "I want you but it feels funny. So… you know…?"

Yami nodded, feeling awkward. Right, Yugi was a person with needs and physical limitations like discomfort. This wasn't just one of his jerk off fantasies where the girl was hot and wet and ready for him at exactly the right point. Though- fuck- he'd like to get Yugi wet. He'd like to slicken up his insides and ease his hot cock insid—

"Yami?" Yugi murmured.

"Huh? Yeah, right." He jumped back to the world of the living. "Right, yeah, we'll go get lube. Okay?"

"Thanks…" Yugi was obviously embarrassed, his hands tensing and easing on Yami's upper arms. "Can, um… can you hold me? Please?" He was a boy and, like a boy, he felt silly asking but Yami didn't mind. He pulled Yugi into his chest and cuddled him close for a second, burying his face in his hair, till he felt the littler body unwind softly. "Thanks," Yugi whispered, precious and small. "Yami…"

* * *

><p>Yami wasn't quite sure how it happened but they managed to throw on their jeans and go for a walk. At the grocery store Yami…. Okay he felt like a moron. Yugi carried the petite, stringy, orange basket and they threw in all the crappy junk food they shouldn't have been eating before heading for the personal hygiene aisle. There Yami spent the next ten minutes nervously glaring down condoms and lube. He'd never done this and it was so painfully obvious.<p>

"I'll pay," Yugi promised. "No point getting Grandpa asking questions."

"God no," Yami agreed, "I'd fucking die if he asked."

"So…?" Yugi cradled the basket, eyeing the display anxiously, silently willing Yami to make a decision.

"I've got no idea what I'm doing," Yami confessed.

"Me neither."

"So…" Yami sighed, shrugging his shoulders and fetched down a bottle. It'd do, right? How hard could it be? Fuck, why did sex have to be complicated? Why did he have to do stinking adult things like this? They made him feel small and uncertain and unimpressive. It was all twinkling lights and glorious passion when Yugi was pulling him close and squirming under him but here under the harsh fluorescents of the store Yami felt every bit his age and twice as stupid.

"Let's go home," Yugi ordered, extending his arm to grab Yami's hand.

Yami twisted his fingers, lacing them through Yugi's, their dry palms rubbing up next to each other. He liked it instantly. There was something mundane but charming about feeling Yugi near him, their palms linking them, and with the plastic shopping bags weighing them down they walked home like that; holding hands.

* * *

><p>Should Yami have waited? Should he be polite and… and wait for…? He didn't know. He felt like maybe there was some signal Yugi would give off to tell him the time was right but he didn't have the patience for it. He got them home, locked the front door, and put the groceries away but that was about all he could take before he was taking Yugi's hand.<p>

He wanted to try the lube out, he wanted to try Yugi out, and waiting just…. His cock wasn't in the mood for waiting for anything at this point. Just leaving the house was hard enough.

They sat on the edge of Yami's bed, Yugi between his spread legs, and taking the other's belt into his grasp Yami unbuckled the smaller and started pushing his pants and his underwear down. His thumbs hooked in the fabric and he watched over Yugi's shoulder as it slid down his pale, milky white, thighs and onto the carpeted floor. Yugi's little ankles peeked out at Yami from the legs of his crumpled pants and the elder rued they hadn't been this naked together since the shower incident.

His hands smoothed up Yugi's hips and under his shirt to feel along his sides. Yugi took it upon himself then to grasp the hem of his shirt and pull it over his head, making his hair bounce as he tossed it down to join the rest of his clothing.

"If Grandpa calls anytime soon my cock is going to fucking explode," Yami whispered to Yugi's giggling reply.

Yugi took a deep breath suddenly, as if he was a little nervous, and nibbling his own bottom lip Yami ran his hands intently along the boy's inner thighs. They were so smooth, inviting almost. It was difficult to do anything save touch them, his thumbs stroking the lines of Yugi's hips and the joint where leg became groin. Yugi arched, ever so slightly, and Yami felt his arousal brush his hands as the tip began to harden under all the passive attention. Yami wasn't touching him, sure, but apparently Yugi's imagination was doing all the work for him.

Yami really wanted him in his lap.

He hooked his hands under Yugi's knees and directed the other's calves over his own knees, effectively pinioning Yugi open. In another moment and with another set of tense inhalations Yami's blunt fingernails were rubbing wet circles over Yugi's entrance. It was an awkward position, made the other a little cramped, but they were both far too enrapt with each other to give a damn. So Yami circled, stroking and stroking, and laying his head back Yugi closed his eyes to take slow, deep, breaths.

"Fuck…" Yugi sighed, nibbling his lip.

"Can I…?"

"Oh_ please_…" Yugi extended the sound, hips arching into Yami's inquisitive fingers.

He pressed, feeling the muscles give around him and, moaning himself, Yami curled his index finger inside the tightness awaiting him. God that'd feel so effing good around his cock, he could just imagine it, his pants already straining to contain his excitement.

Yugi moaned, hands fumbling to palm his own cock and, in a moment or two, they worked out a fumbling system of give and take. Yami prodded, his fingers easing in and out an inch or two, while Yugi stroked. Before long the smaller was arching his hips to push down into the intrusion more fucking himself than anything. Yami barely had to move his hand at all. e

He just sat there, incredibly aroused, feeling Yugi moan and squirm in his lap.

"_Oh_…" Yugi flexed downward, _"more_…"

Yami hissed, a third cramped finger straining to reach up inside the other while Yugi tried awkwardly to stroke himself around Yami's intrusive forearm that sat between his opened thighs.

"Oh shit, I wanna fuck you," Yami whispered, chest tight. The words all seemed to roll together and he couldn't quite separate them out into a proper sentence. He wasn't exactly coherent.

Yugi clenched around him and Yami almost came in his jocks.

"Yeah," the smaller wheezed, "oh god, yeah, do it."

Yami removed his hand from where his straining fingers were prying Yugi open to shift the smaller out of his lap and onto the mattress. Yugi rolled, sagging onto his back and continued to stroke his dripping cock as he waited. He watched Yami struggle to whip his cock out, watched him try to ease a condom over his erection with shaking hands and, when he was done, Yugi was still watching him as he whispered; "how should we…?"

"Hands, knees." Yami ordered, stumbling onto his bare feet.

He stood at the edge of the bed and, grasping Yugi's hips, helped roll the other onto his stomach and drag his ass up into the air. Yugi's knees parted, his feet moving far enough apart to allow Yami's legs between them, and pulling him back Yami aligned the tip of his cock with the cleft of the other's perfectly pert ass. Yeah, Yami appraised his kingdom, he could totally get used to this.

He took the lube in hand, lathering up his cock, and took a brief second of silent contemplation to rue that he totally wasn't going to be a virgin anymore. He was going to be a man. He was going to fuck his Daddy's perfect little boy and… Wow… He was going to be different. He and Yugi were going to be different. The world was going to be different. He swallowed, wetting the inside of his mouth, and took a deep, steadying, breath. Only to realize Yugi wasn't breathing.

"Relax, kay?" He ordered.

Yugi nodded into the sheets his little hands were clenching, his golden strands strewn everywhere.

Yami pressed, breathless, and slid the head of his cock home inside the other. Yugi's knuckles turned bone white and Yami watched the colour fade as he slid more and more of his cock inside. His lips parted, fell open, and somehow his hips kept moving seemingly without any conscious effort. He was buried, balls deep, before he thought to stop.

He stood, shaking and shuddering like a leaf, feeling Yugi clench and ease around him. He was hot and wet and squeezing Yami's cock like it was enveloped in butter. Yami couldn't breathe. He eased back, taking his cock with him, and air seemed to fill his lungs, finally, releasing him of the tension that made it hard to think or move or sit still. Immediately Yami wanted it back.

"_Ooh_…" He let the sound ripple out of him, smoothing the transition of his arousal into the tension that left him shell shocked and stupid.

"F-fuck…" Yugi gasped, flexing his hips back to slowly meet up with Yami's.

They developed a rhythm. Every time Yami bottomed out inside the other his stomach dropped and his chest tightened but every time he withdrew his whole body ached for him to drive his cock home faster. There was a pain he noticed that came from _not_ being buried to the hilt.

They sped up, faster and faster, till their hips were slapping audibly.

* * *

><p>Yugi spent the next few days in Yami's lap. They could barely keep their hands off each other. Hot kisses turned into wet strokes of Yugi's tongue along Yami's cock and hard squeezes of the hand turned into slaps against Yugi's tense backside. They peeled apart in the afterglow panting softly on the mattress and, sometimes, on the lounge room floor.<p>

"You're fucking beautiful," Yami told him quietly. "You're really fucking beautiful."

Yugi rolled into him, arm around his middle, nose buried in the side of his neck and smiled like a moron. Yami meant every word, of course, because who could deny Yugi was beautiful? Who could deny he was sweet and attentive and fun? Anyone put their hands on him again and Yami would smash their brains out. He used to crack punks open for Jou when they were younger and those gangster wannabes gave them a hard time. What was to stop him from peeling off his soft visage and doing it again? He was trying to be straight and narrow, trying to be good, but he'd scratch up his knuckles for Yugi. Yugi deserved that wild, stupid, side of him in all its violent glory.

"Hey, um, Yami, about Dad…" Yugi whispered, nails stroking circles over Yami's navel.

"Don't wanna know," he answered to the ceiling, "fuck it. I don't even wanna know."

"You sure?"

"Positive."

"I'm… I'm sorry I wasn't more talkative. It's just hard talking about him, ya know?" Yugi swallowed, wetting his lips, his little tongue brushing Yami's sweaty skin by accident. "I miss him. A lot. But I'll tell you anything, okay? You just ask and I'll tell you anything I can remember. I know he wasn't good to you. I wanna be good to you."

"It's okay," Yami shrugged, "he's dead, right? He didn't want me. I'm not going to stress about it anymore. I'm just going to have fun with you instead."

"Till Grandpa comes back?"

"For as long as you want." Yami promised. "You're my friend. You're my little brother."

"Yeah," Yugi agreed with a smile creeping across his face, his hand curling into a weak fist on Yami's clavicle.

It was a bad way to describe them. Inaccurate and silly and not quite right on any level but it would have to do for the moment. Yami wasn't ready to say stuff like…_that_. Even if he felt it his little mobster heart wouldn't let him spit it out so easily. So, for now, he'd settle for the complete adoration that came with '_you're my little brother_' to serve in place of _'I love you_'.

* * *

><p>AN: and another one bites the dust. I apologize for any errors, ffn was fighting me in formatting today. Next fortnight_ Crowbar_ will be up. Details below…

Rating: MA+  
>Pairings: YamiYugi  
>Universe: AU<br>Part: 1/1  
>Summary: Yugi Mutou was just trying to keep himself and his vagabonds alive in the post apocalypse. Then aliens showed up and, can we just say, they have some weird kinks about getting hit with a crowbar.<p> 


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